Rebirth 2010: I taught Mr. Lei how to make a mobile phone

Chapter 880 Self-developed or word-developed?

Public opinion across the internet is overwhelmingly in favor of the other side.
"Damn, this isn't an apology letter from Douyin, it sounds like they're showing off!"

"Did you all notice that Xiaomi's stock actually held up this time? Millions of units sold and there were no shortages. Lei Jun finally showed some strength."

"I never expected such expert skills. Jia Yueting has turned live-streaming e-commerce into a tech launch event..."

Comments from netizens and praise from various media outlets flooded in like a tidal wave, instantly cementing the label of "the pride of Chinese products" on Xiaomi.

As public opinion spread from online to offline, Xiaomi stores were bustling with customers, with staff working non-stop; Apple stores had customers, but most were just browsing to experience the new products; and another once leading domestic brand store was deserted with only a handful of customers.

In business competition, the winner takes all; this is the essence of the game.

This company, which focuses on domestic brands, is now extremely uneasy. Before Xiaomi started localizing its products, they were the face of domestic mobile phones. However, in just a few days, they were overtaken!

Yu Dazui, who was in charge of the business, was so angry he almost ground his teeth to powder.

All that pre-launch hype, painstaking preparation for the launch event, and collaboration with Taobao Live for sales... they were busy as bees, but in the end, it all benefited Xiaomi!

Lei Jun actually asked Jia Yueting to do a live-streaming sales event. This isn't just cheating; it's downright dishonest!

Otherwise, why did Jia Yueting always keep his intentions hidden until the very last moment before revealing his true colors? Isn't that a sign of a guilty conscience?
He was initially satisfied with his current performance, but after seeing the opponent's battle report, the nearly tenfold difference was unacceptable to him.

He was initially satisfied with his current performance, but then he saw the opponent's battle report.

Without comparison, there is no harm; the nearly tenfold difference is like a resounding slap in the face.

Yu Dazui slammed down the internal phone in the technical department, his voice filled with barely suppressed anger:

"Has the teardown and analysis report of Mianxinsheng's Xuanjie O1 chip not been released yet?"

Huawei's first self-developed chip for mobile phones was the K3V1, which was released in 2009.

However, the first self-developed mobile phone chip to achieve large-scale commercial use and market success was the Kirin 910, released in 2014.

Starting from this year, the chip was named "Kirin," marking the official maturation of Huawei's mobile phone chips and propelling Huawei into the ranks of top-tier chip manufacturers.

In 2017, the Kirin 970, which is equipped in the Mate 10, is Huawei HiSilicon's flagship mobile processor and the world's first smartphone chip with a built-in independent NPU (Neural Processing Unit).

The original intention was to use this chip to completely overturn Xiaomi's position in the domestic smartphone market, establish Huawei's leading advantage in the chip field, and pave the way for the subsequent iteration of the Kirin 980.

The result was quite surprising; in just one day, a tenfold difference in sales volume was evident.

Reputation has been stolen, and sales volume can't compete.

After all that effort, he ended up with nothing, which instantly broke Yu Dazui's defenses.

In his eyes, there is never any harmonious coexistence or united front against external threats; there is only life-or-death struggle, whether at home or abroad!
The company has always emphasized a wolf-like culture of survival of the fittest, but what exactly is wolf-like behavior? A wolf is one that can hunt its prey, regardless of whether it is a black cat or a white cat.

Now, he doesn't believe at all that the Xuanjie chip in the Xiaomi Mix is ​​as amazing as Lei Jun claims.

In the following days, many tech enthusiasts online launched a massive wave of chip reviews and teardowns, with various related videos and live streams emerging one after another. This time, it truly felt like they were examining the chips under a microscope.

#Xiaomi is truly a domestic brand# and #Self-developed Xuanjie O1# have become the hottest topics on the internet recently, without exception.

How well does it perform? Is it self-developed or "character-developed"?
The online controversy has never stopped.

Teardown and Verification! The True Architecture of the Xuanjie O1 Chip Revealed, This Time the Self-Developed Flagship SoC is Truly Secure.

In-depth review of the Xuanjie O1 chip: Exceptional manufacturing process and performance!

Xiaomi Xuanjie O1 Chip Teardown: Solid Evidence of Self-Developed Chip Refutes "Reskinned" Suspicions!

"The Real Skills Acquired Through Three Years of Research: The Mysterious Ring O1 Breaks Preconceptions!"

Even with numerous reviews and mainstream media acknowledging Xiaomi's self-developed design and recognizing the performance of the Xuanjie chip, doubts persist.

"The results are in? What were the findings..." Yu Dazui's voice carried a hint of barely perceptible urgency.

"This chip uses the same Arm reference architecture as ours..." the technician reported.

"Are you sure?" Yu Dazui suddenly looked up.

"OK!" "Great, this is going to be fun!"

With a wide grin, a plan formed in his mind.

A day later, the British chip design company ARM suddenly published an article on its official website entitled "The Xuanjie O1 chip is powered by the Arm computing platform".

As the article appeared, its content was translated and circulated in China. Many people interpreted its wording as "the Xuanjie chip was designed primarily by ARM," which contradicted Lei Jun's earlier emphasis on "fully self-developed" technology at the press conference.

If what ARM says is true, the CPU and GPU of the Xuanjie O1 both use the Arm reference architecture, which is similar to Qualcomm and Huawei's current Kirin chips - the latter two are also based on the Arm architecture, but differentiate themselves through self-developed NPU, baseband and other technologies.

All previous claims of self-developed technology are now refuted!
This caused an uproar in China, and the sales of Xiaomi products were affected to some extent.

Despite the impressive specifications of the Xuanjie O1, public opinion has been guided, with criticisms mainly focusing on three points:

I. The “Generational Gap” in Manufacturing Processes: How could key core technologies be tackled so quickly in just three years?

II. Questions about the R&D cycle: Huawei took a full nine years from HiSilicon K3V2 (2009) to Kirin 970 (2017), during which it experienced several setbacks; while Mianxinsheng achieved a head start in just five years?

3. Does the "public version architecture" count as self-developed?

Many people even maliciously speculated that these review organizations were bribed and "fed" by Xiaomi and Mianxinsheng.

Finally, Mi'an Xinsheng jointly issued a statement to set the record straight, with a powerful title: "Just because you can't do it doesn't mean I can't!"
I. Explanation of the "Generation Gap" in Manufacturing Processes Since its inception in 2011, Mianxin has clearly defined its "generation skip" strategy. Under the leadership of semiconductor experts such as Zhang Rujing and Liang Mengsong, it skipped the 32nm node and directly tackled the 22nm/14nm process.

The core breakthrough stems from two sources of support:
Collaborative Research Efforts: Dr. Liang Mengsong has extensive experience and achievements in chip R&D at TSMC and Samsung. The team of technical experts at Mianxinsheng, led by him, includes core technical personnel from TSMC, Samsung, and HiSilicon, totaling nearly 500 people.

Furthermore, in collaboration with institutions such as the Institute of Microelectronics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and Fudan University, we have focused on making breakthroughs in "bottleneck" technologies such as photoresist and EDA tools.
Continuous investment of over 30 billion RMB: Xiaomi Group and Beyond Group have invested over 30 billion RMB in the past five years to ensure the continuity of R&D;
II. Questions about the R&D cycle: The essential difference between Huawei HiSilicon's "9-year iteration" and Mianxin's "5-year breakthrough" lies in:

The starting points of the technology generation are different: Mianxin started with the 45nm mass production line and directly inherited mature equipment and patents;
Ecosystem feedback: Xiaomi's home appliance ecosystem receives millions of orders, supporting production line ramp-up and rapidly reducing R&D costs;
III. Regarding the definition of "public architecture" and self-developed: Xuanjie O1 does not use Arm's CSS (Custom Subsystem Solution) service, and the rumors circulating online are completely unfounded.

Instead, it uses the latest CPU and GPU IP licensed from Arm, and the entire multi-core design, system interconnection, and backend physical implementation are all completed independently.

It is not a chip "manufactured" by Arm, nor is it "rebranded," but rather a completely independently designed Xuanwu framework: with an independently designed bus interconnect and cache architecture, performance is optimized by 40%.

NPU is entirely self-developed: its independent neural network unit surpasses contemporary public solutions;

Domestic EDA toolchain: Achieving full-process control from design to packaging and testing.

Following this, MiAnXinSheng became even more determined in its chip design direction, believing that skepticism would only strengthen its research capabilities!

Since Mianxinsheng and ARM are still in a cooperative relationship, it is inconvenient for them to come forward directly.

Ultimately, Xiaomi took action, filing a lawsuit through its UK branch in a local court against the organization for publishing false or misleading statements and infringing on its reputation.

Coincidentally, the controversial article on ARM's official website suddenly disappeared, as if it had never existed.

Inside Apple's headquarters in China, there's a fierce battle between Huami and Xiaomi—the product launch combined with live-streaming sales, all happening simultaneously, resulting in a fierce competition.
With the iPhone X delayed, Apple's popularity has long since cooled down.

The president of Apple Greater China had already given up resistance. He had done everything he could, so it wasn't his fault and he didn't care what happened.

But seeing Xiaomi embroiled in controversy, she suddenly felt that things had taken a turn for the better, and an opportunity to fish in troubled waters had arrived.

She immediately ordered Apple China's media resources to ramp up their efforts, channeling firepower to the weaker side and uniting against the enemy.

When Lei Jun heard the news that the original article had been deleted, he snorted coldly.

With the rapid development of technology, it's been so many years and our competitors haven't made any progress. Can't they come up with something new?

He clearly remembers that when he was still at Kingsoft, Kingsoft Antivirus launched a free, enhanced version of its antivirus software called Kingsoft Internet Security.

At that time, Xiao Zhou, who had just revealed his rogue nature, came up with an extremely insidious trick to deal with Kingsoft Internet Security: he widely sent pop-up windows to users who had installed both 360 Security Guard and Kingsoft Internet Security, asking them to uninstall Kingsoft Internet Security and keep only 360 Security Guard under the pretext of "compatibility"...

That time, he was caught off guard and filed a lawsuit against 360.

They won the lawsuit and received 30 yuan in compensation, but 360 completely seized the market, causing them to lose more than 3 million yuan in market share.

This became a painful memory in his heart.

Unexpectedly, more than ten years later, I smelled that familiar scent again.

(End of this chapter)