The Millennium Semiconductor Survival Guide

"No, really not, even if it is a Razor phone, the Razor phone may have a more beautiful design and more features, but once the functionality is taken into consideration, we find that the Mphone is the best model."

Mphone2 major mobile phone manufacturers can be described as facing the enemy, from the market response to industry reputation to media opinion, Mphone2 has given them tremendous pressure.

If Mphone1 is just the beginning, then Mphone2 is an undisguised display of Zhou Xin's ambition, hoping to use Mphone to define the development direction of smart phones and even future mobile phones.

Judging from the history of Silicon Valley over the past 30 years, at the beginning of an era, companies that have the right to define often get the biggest piece of cake, which is also the standard for so-called first-class companies.

In the past, there were very few companies in Silicon Valley that were able to make standards, and those who could do this were all well-known giants, such as IBM, Microsoft, Oracle, etc. In the field of mobile phones, Motorola used to be such a standard-setting company.

However, with the rapid rise of Nokia, Motorola lost its original position. Since the end of 1999, it has lowered its profit forecast almost every year. The stock price has been falling all the way. .

Motorola's Communications Division is one of Motorola's three pillars, contributing 70% of Motorola's business volume, and its personal communications division is responsible for manufacturing Motorola mobile phones.

Originally, the direct competitive pressure brought by Nokia was already strong enough, but now a competitor has emerged from other fields. This competitor's business strategy and product positioning are completely different from Nokia's.

At the beginning, Motorola took a wait-and-see attitude. The name Newman was enough for them to pay attention to. After the launch of Mphone1, Motorola turned into learning and launching a direct competitor, trying to get a share in the field of Internet mobile phones.

At that time, smartphones were still defined by the media as Internet phones. As a result, sales were not as good as expected, and the market response was mediocre. From the perspective of applications, if there were not enough users, there would not be enough information flow. This is a vicious circle.

After Mphone2 came out, Motorola quickly summoned all executives to analyze Mphone2, and the more they analyzed, the more pressure and gap they felt. Because Mphone1's leading position is software, and the gap in software can be made up by spending manpower or finding external partners.

Although Galvin, the president of Motorola, doesn't think anyone can beat Newman in the software field, this gap is acceptable and can be made up by copying Mphone applications.

After Mphone2 came out, the gap expanded from the software level to the hardware level, especially the multi-touch screen of Mphone.

After the R\u0026D department conducted a comprehensive analysis of the Mphone2, Gilmore, the director of the Communication Division, seemed very frustrated when reporting to Galvin. Originally, Motorola's 2002 annual report did not match expectations, which was beyond the expectations of Wall Street analysts.

Motorola's stock price has ushered in another sharp drop in the secondary market. Why do you say again? Because this scene has repeatedly appeared in the past five years, Gilmour, as vice president and head of the communications business unit, is almost on the verge of killing.

Gilmore said: "Blade is worse than Mphone2 in terms of feel and appearance. This is based on the premise of sacrificing performance. The built-in chips of Blade are far less than Mphone2, and it is naturally inferior to Mphone2 in terms of function.

The most important thing is that the content of Mphone2's application store is much richer than before, and the application is no longer limited to games. Before Mphone1, mobile applications were mainly games, and consumers were willing to pay for games.

On the Mphone2, various software such as music player software, video software, e-reading software, and time management software emerge in an endless stream, and the efficiency and comfort of browsing text information on mobile phones have made a qualitative leap. If it is simply better than Mphone2 in terms of appearance and feel, it will be difficult for the blade to be recognized by consumers.

We judge that the functionality of mobile phones will be more and more emphasized in the future, the CPU of mobile phones will become the most important factor in determining the life and death of mobile phones, and communication will no longer be the most important function of mobile phones. "

Motorola has a good relationship with Zhou Xin, but this kind of relationship is not with the Communication Division, but with Motorola's Semiconductor Division, which is another major pillar industry of Motorola.

Xinxin and Motorola's semiconductor division have a lot of cooperation in China. Motorola was the company with the largest investment in China other than Xinxin Technology during the early millennium. In 2000, the total investment scale reached 28.5 billion RMB.

What's even more ridiculous is that the first semiconductor joint venture company established by Motorola in Huaguo was placed in Leshan, saying that it was in response to Huaguo's call to go to the west.

By 2003, Motorola had a sole proprietorship, a holding company, and seven joint ventures in China, with a total of more than 10,000 employees. The annual sales are about 26 billion RMB.

Even before 2001, Motorola had always firmly supported Hua Guo's accession to the WTO. This support was not limited to words, but repeatedly lobbied on Capitol Hill to persuade members to support Hua Guo's accession to the WTO.

Motorola's behavior can be said to be out of self-interest considerations, but the other two companies, Nokia and Ericsson, who are also in the three-point mobile phone market in China, are far inferior to Motorola in terms of investment scale and support.

"I know the chip is going to be the most important part of the phone in the future, maybe one, maybe not," Galvin said.

I have been in contact with Michelle Meyer, and he has verbally agreed to take up a position at Motorola. When Meyer comes, he will be solely responsible for Motorola's chip business. "

Michelle Meyer is the former general manager of IBM's chip division and has worked in IBM for 20 years.

"I plan to spin off Freescale's semiconductor business unit and become a separate company. This is also a model to learn from Matrix and Xinxin. The chip is an independent company, which is more conducive to the overall operation of the company, and the semiconductor department will also have performance pressure. "

For the chip industry, it is a very common phenomenon to select managers from the industry. These people are very familiar with the tides and fluctuations of the semiconductor business.

AMD hired Hector Ruiz, the former director of Motorola's semiconductor division, who left Motorola in January 2000. Hector Ruiz became AMD CEO in April 2002.

"There will be a dedicated person in charge of the chip level, but what about the screen? How can we achieve a multi-touch screen similar to the Mphone?

With Mphone2, if we provide consumers with a pen, and then tell them that using a pen can better highlight the demeanor of successful business people, it would be a little underestimating the consumers with a price of 700 US dollars. "

Gilmore said: "Currently we have communicated with some companies in the market that focus on touch screen solutions. The realization of multi-touch is mainly based on two technologies: infrared projectors and infrared cameras or LED current sensing mechanisms.

After we communicated with suppliers, they generally responded that they could not achieve the sensitivity and fluency of Mphone. The infrared touch screen does not meet the application scenarios of mobile phones, and this technical solution was inherently passed. We can only choose the LED current sensing mechanism, but this technology is very immature.

Either it is insensitive or it leaks electricity. Except for Matrix, other supplier technologies can only choose one of the two.

The technical maturity of the Mphone screen is far beyond their imagination. We plan to talk to the Mphone screen supplier about their technical implementation details, and then see if there is any way to bypass Matrix's technology patent. "

The main part of the earliest resistive touch screen is a resistive film screen, its surface is coated with a layer of transparent metal oxide conductive layer, which contains two layers of transparent conductors.

There are many small transparent points between the two conductive layers, which separate the two conductive layers and insulate them, and coat a piece of silver glue on the sidelines of the two layers of conductor working surfaces, apply voltage to one end, and ground the other end, so that A uniform and continuous equal voltage distribution can be formed in one direction of the working surface.

When the finger or touch terminal touches the screen, the two conductive layers are in contact at the contact point, and the pressure makes the two conductive layers make a contact at the contact point, because the voltage is increased between the two layers of conductors, divided by resistance If the pressure is applied, different currents will flow on different contacts, and the control device can distinguish the coordinates of the pressure on the display screen.

After the launch of the resistive touch screen, it was mainly used in personal handheld computers and a few mobile phones, but compared with the button mobile phone, it did not have many advantages in use, so it was quickly abandoned. Only a few companies are still trying this technical solution.

The capacitive touch screen used by Mphone2 has a breakthrough in technology. The other point is that Zhou Xin adopted the mature architecture of later generations, positioning through the combination of X-axis and Y-axis. This is a solution that was not explored until iphone4. The solution makes the sensitivity of Mphone2's touch screen qualitatively different from that of ordinary capacitive screens.

Mobile phone manufacturers are researching the technical principle and technical realization scheme of Mphone2, and inquiring about the core suppliers of Mphone2 through various methods.

And Zhou Xin's next move is to strike hard at this year's E3 exhibition.

The E3 exhibition in 2003 can be said to be an exhibition where masterpieces gathered. During this period, many masterpieces such as Warcraft 3, Halo 2, and Final Fantasy 11 were released this year.

As the largest sponsor of the E3 exhibition, Riot Games naturally has the right and qualification to define the main topics of this year's E3. Under Zhou Xin's instructions, this year's E3 exhibition will spend a lot of space on mobile games.

At the same time, Zhouxin's Flamingo Games also participated in this E3 exhibition with several mobile games, and the most important thing is "Legend of Heroes" created with League of Legends game characters.

This is a mobile game modeled on the game model of "Dota Legend", except that the character is changed from the role of Dota to the role of League of Legends.

Zhou Xin placed high hopes on this game. This kind of card-drawing game has limited requirements for network bandwidth, and the 3G network is sufficient to meet the network requirements.

At the E3 exhibition, the booth of Flamingo was almost full of cosplayers and figures, and there were no computers for players to experience.

There are and only QR codes for games such as "Legend of Heroes", "Temple Run", and "Subway Surfers" launched this time.

Above is the title, below is the QR code, "Please download the QR code to experience the above game"

Mphone2 is equipped with the wifi function that supports the latest IEEE 802.11g standard, and the maximum transmission rate can reach 54Mbps.

Charles is a loyal fan of Newman and Flamingo. He started to enter the pit from Genting Game, and experienced it on the spot since the first generation of Genting Game was released at the E3 exhibition.

In the past 3 global ladder competitions, he has entered the top 500 in the American region, and is only one step away from the offline competition requirement of 128. He saw that Flamingo Games brought a large number of new works to the E3 exhibition this time, and he was very happy in his heart.

For game lovers, what could make you happier than when your favorite manufacturer releases multiple games at once?

But what disappointed Charles a little was that when the game brought by Flamingo was displayed this time, he felt a little monotonous.

Swipe left and right to control characters, Subway Surfers and Temple Run are nothing more than a different scene, what's the point? This is far too simple.

Charles feels that these two games are not games, but tools for promoting the touch function of the Mphone2 screen.

But he still wants to give it a try, because Flamingo is known for its simple operation and fun games. Maybe they can make the game interesting with just this mode?

When Charles stood in front of the Flamingo game booth and was about to experience it, he realized that there was only a QR code, and he needed to download it himself. The Flamingo game booth did not provide experience links.

"It's a damn QR code again, how much Newman likes QR codes." Charles complained inwardly.

Zhou Xin has many nicknames in Silicon Valley. The king of the Internet is a positive nickname, while the captcha devil and QR code fanatic are relatively negative and derogatory nicknames.

Every time the netizens in American felt irritated when entering the verification code, they would secretly scold Zhou Xin twice, thinking that he was responsible for the current Internet environment being so complicated.

Charles took out his Mphone1 from his jacket pocket, then lifted it up to scan and looked at the size of the app, "Fortunately, it's acceptable, it should only take fifteen minutes to download."

"Should I buy Mphone2? There are too many upgrades for Mphone2, and I'm really tempted, but the problem is that the price is too expensive, almost half a month's salary of mine." Charles was very conflicted.

The wifi function of Mphone1 supports the previous standard, and the transmission speed is extremely limited.

After spending an hour experiencing Temple Run and Subway Surfers, Charles thought to himself: "It's okay, it's not bad if you play it in the subway or in your spare time.

Although it is not as good as Angry Birds, the problem is that the mobile version of Angry Birds only supports Mphone2, and simple operations such as Subway Surfers and Temple Run can also be played on Mphone1.

Try Legend of Heroes again. "

At the game conference before Flamingo, Charles was actually most interested in "Legend of Heroes", because this game uses the same world view as Genting Game, and it also looks the most complicated during the display process.

After he walked to the QR code of "Legend of Heroes" and scanned it, he found sadly that "Legend of Heroes" only supports Mphone2.

The main reason is that I am too busy working overtime every day, and the crow can't do it even if I want to add an update. I will add a chapter on weekends! That is four thousand words.