Tech startup: I really do make mobile phones!

Chapter 97 Chip Sales
Morning light streamed through the blinds of the neighboring workshop, casting alternating light and dark stripes on Zhao Tiezhu's sweat-soaked work clothes.

He had just finished unloading goods from the OEM factory with his team, his forehead still steaming. He stood with his hands on his hips in front of five dismantling workers who had switched jobs, his dusty shoe tips crunching over cardboard box scraps on the ground.

"Remember this, everyone!" He wiped his sweat, the cuff of his work clothes brushing against his shiny nose. "Today, I'm sending two guys to keep an eye on those two screen factories. If I find any more defective pixels..."

He suddenly lowered his voice and pretended to raise his fist: "The bonuses that General Manager Chen told you about this month, you're all going to lose!"

Upon seeing Chen Mo approaching with a steamed bun in his mouth, Zhao Tiezhu immediately put on a smiling face and waved his hand.

"Disperse! Everyone, go keep an eye on the spare parts suppliers!"

"Hey, Manager Zhao from the Marketing Department, you're pretty impressive, aren't you?" Chen Mo raised an eyebrow and smiled, steam wafting out from the bitten-open bun.

Just as Chen Mo walked into the small workshop carrying three steamed buns, the landline rang.
The call from the mold factory in Dongguang, looking for someone, surprised Chen Mo. The main reason was that the caller immediately asked for "Manager Zhao from the Marketing Department of Orange Technology," which made it take him a while to process who this Manager Zhao was.

As Zhao Tiezhu turned around, he knocked over a cardboard box, and his voice abruptly stopped.

Inside the cardboard box were phone ring holders that Chen Mo had prepared to incentivize wholesalers to buy, which were scattered all over the floor.

"Don't even mention it!" Zhao Tiezhu squatted down to pick up the phone holder, the plastic wrapping bag rustling in his palm. "Back when I went to Dongguang to meet those mold factory owners, as long as I said I was a disassembly worker, they wouldn't even offer me tea before waving me away!"

Chen Mo smiled and handed him the last steamed bun in the plastic bag in his hand: "So you've been talking nonsense all this time?"

"These days, if you don't have a title when you're doing business, you can't hold your own at all!" Zhao Tiezhu finished picking up the things, casually dusted off his hands, and took the buns from the plastic bag.

"Okay! I'll make you a full-time employee!"

Chen Mo gently patted the cardboard box scraps off his shoulder. The morning light streamed in through the blinds, creating a line of light and shadow in the other man's expectant gaze.

"Comrade Zhao Tiezhu, in view of your recent outstanding performance, the general manager of Orange Technology has decided to appoint you as the marketing director of Orange Technology, effective immediately!"

Zhao Tiezhu took a bite of his steamed bun and muttered, "Why isn't this the manager?"

"Sure!" Chen Mo raised an eyebrow and smiled. "The manager's monthly salary is 3000, and the supervisor's is 5000. You choose!"

Zhao Tiezhu has a face like a dog's; he can change his expression in an instant. His bitter face instantly transforms into a fawning smile.

"The supervisor! It has to be the supervisor! I wouldn't even take a managerial job with a monthly salary of 3000!"

The "Manager Zhao" on the landline this morning really reminded Chen Mo that as a subsidiary of Orange Holdings, Yuancheng couldn't let Orange headquarters be without any decent management team besides itself.

Moreover, we just poached Senior Brother Liu to Yuancheng with double his salary yesterday, so it's time to give Zhao Tiezhu, the "second veteran," some real incentive today.

Chen Mo is not the kind of boss who makes hundreds of millions of yuan but is unwilling to share a share with his employees.

In his eyes, the friendship they had built over the past three years was more precious than the number on his bank card.

Moreover, the creation of Orange 1 from scratch owes much to Zhao Tiezhu's efforts.

Having lived two lives, Chen Mo naturally understands the hardships of working people. One of his original intentions in starting his business was to enable those who followed him to build the empire to live a decent life.

Gong Yun sat at her workstation, having just finished feeding Xiaomi Baozi the meat filling, and was scratching its chin: "Xiaomi! You have to work hard, Xiao Zhao is already a supervisor!"

This made it squint its eyes in comfort, let out a meowing tremor, and flicked the tip of its tail in a lazy arc along the edge of the table leg.

"Sister Gong!" Chen Mo stepped into the small workshop: "Let's go! Let's take a look around the area. We need to find a decent new place for the company!"

Although there's no place like home, the small workshop was barely big enough for the three of them.

Moreover, with five new disassembly workers already joining the company, and the need to continue recruiting and expanding, these two small workshops—one as a temporary rest area and the other as a warehouse—are simply too crowded.

Chen Mo's gaze swept over the compact workshop, where the mottled walls were covered with "/" marks, indicating orders that had already been shipped.

"That kid Zhao Tiezhu keeps talking about taking the elevator to work. Now that our company has plenty of cash flow, it's time to get Orange Technology a place to show off its reputation."

Since Gong Yun joined the company, Chen Mo has delegated some of his own bookkeeping and logistical work to her. Orange Technology's proper finances are handled by an accounting firm that sends people to manage them regularly each month; her job is simply bookkeeping and getting invoices.

Today I went to look for an office building nearby, and I had to trouble her to come along so that it would be easier to coordinate with the property management later. Chen Mo couldn't possibly spend his time on such trivial matters.

Gong Yun gently placed the little kitten from her lap onto the table. Its white paws stepped over the order list, leaving a few light gray plum blossom marks.

She stroked the worn strap of her canvas bag and said, "A few days ago I passed by the Huaqiangbei Electronics Building, and there was a rental advertisement on the twelfth floor in front of the door."

As she spoke, she took out a white Orange 1 phone from her bag, pulled up a photo, and saw an advertisement in red pen that read: "Entire 12th floor for rent, 90 yuan/square meter, two months' deposit and three months' rent in advance, rent negotiable."

Chen Mo took the phone and checked it, praising, "Sister Gong is so meticulous!" He recalled the last time Duowei and Green Factory's flyers, which they also discovered immediately and notified him via MMS.

"Mr. Chen, you flatter me." Gong Yun lowered her eyes and smiled lightly: "The company is developing rapidly every day. The office building is the face of the company. If we don't choose it well, it will affect the confidence of the wholesalers."

Chen Mo smiled and tapped his phone screen with his fingertip: "The price is reasonable. Let's go check it out in person."

"Okay!" Gong Yun stuffed her phone back into her canvas bag, the faded strap swaying in an arc on her shoulder: "If there were a sunny floor-to-ceiling window on the twelfth floor, Xiaomi could bask in the sun!"

This alley is adjacent to the stalls of Huaqiangbei Market, a prime location. However, due to the towering buildings on both sides, the sun only shines in at an angle twice a day, giving the alley a cool and damp feel all year round, and even in the height of summer, it is hard to feel the heat.

This has both advantages and disadvantages!

Just as the two reached the door, Zhao Tiezhu burst in, carrying a stack of orders. The handwritten words "Market Manager" on his name tag were still stained with ink.

Zhao Tiezhu is a leader now, so I have to show off. Today I must show off to Old Zhang and the others at the stall.

"Brother Chen! Sister Gong! Where are you two going to have some fun? Take me with you!"

Zhao Tiezhu is not a person who can sit still. Whenever he has free time, he wants to go out every day.

"What else can we do? Of course, we'll find a new home for Orange Technology!" Chen Mo waved his phone, a smile playing on his lips.

Zhao Tiezhu's eyes lit up, and he immediately leaned over: "Let's choose the SEG Plaza! Tencent started out there, let's get some of their good fortune, maybe one day our Orange Technology can also go public and ring the bell!"

"Sister Gong has already found out that there are rental listings in the Huaqiangbei Electronics Building," Chen Mo said with a smile, raising an eyebrow. "If you can tell me which floor of SEG Plaza is available for rent, I'll change my plans immediately."

Zhao Tiezhu scratched the back of his head, revealing a large tooth with bits of green chives stuck to it.

Gong Yun smiled slightly upon seeing this, took out a piece of chewing gum from her canvas bag, and handed it to him.

"Xiao Zhao! Here."

???

Although he didn't know why this crazy woman wanted to give him chewing gum, Zhao Tiezhu obediently accepted it.

This crazy woman is like a donkey that needs to be stroked; you have to go along with her, otherwise she'll either go crazy and provoke you, or she'll leave you with nothing.

Chen Mo chuckled and patted him on the shoulder: "Our Orange doesn't rely on luck or metaphysics, we only rely on skill! In ten years, even Tencent will have to give us a wide berth!"

Gong Yun remained silent, her eyes lowered and a faint smile on her face.

"I trust Brother Chen!" Zhao Tiezhu gripped the piece of chewing gum tightly, pounding his chest loudly. "I'll keep an eye on things here, you guys go ahead!"

Watching the two walk away, Zhao Tiezhu hummed a little tune as he tidied up the warehouse shelves.

Suddenly, the sound of leather shoes clicking on the ground came from the alley entrance. A middle-aged man in a suit led a short-haired woman in. His eyes, behind his black-rimmed glasses, sharply swept over the shipping manifests on the workshop wall.

"Mr. He! This is it!" The middle-aged man's voice was very low: "I checked the company address according to the business registration, and this is definitely the correct one!"

Hearing someone talking behind him, Zhao Tiezhu chewed his gum and turned around to see a short-haired woman in a business suit. Her eyes, behind her black-rimmed glasses, were scrutinizing the name tag of Zhao Tiezhu, the "Marketing Manager" of Orange Technology, hanging around his neck.

"Manager Zhao! Hello!" The woman handed over a gold-embossed business card: "I am He Tingbo from Haisi Semiconductor. I would like to discuss chip cooperation with your company."

"Hai Si?" Zhao Tiezhu spat out his tasteless chewing gum, wiped his hands, and took the other party's business card with both hands. He blurted out, "The subsidiary of Huawei that makes the 'Little Dragon' chip?" There was no other way! These days, there was only one manufacturer in China that wanted to make its own mobile phone SOC chip.

And they actually managed to make it work after five years.

The initial development model of the Maritime Silk Road was similar to that of wheat in later generations: self-design and OEM chip fabrication.

Don't underestimate the value of mobile phone SOC chips. Even in 2025, there will only be three companies in China with the capability to develop them.

Ordinary power chips, baseband chips, and communication chips are like building a separate building, while a SoC integrates these functions on a chip the size of a thumb, which is equivalent to building a city, making it extremely valuable.

Haisi first developed a SoC chip, and then... after Huawei commercialized the K3V1 on a small scale, it was recalled due to overheating and burning through the motherboard.

Charmander!!!
You shouldn't insult someone by revealing their weaknesses, and you shouldn't hit someone in the face. Zhao Tiezhu, however, brought up the most sensitive topic right in front of the person in question.

A cold glint flashed behind He Tingbo's glasses, but he maintained a polite smile: "Exactly! But our K3V1 chip has been improved; it's not as popular anymore!"

Who told you to be less skilled? You have to accept it when you get beaten, and then work hard to catch up. That's the stubbornness in her bones.

Having roughly guessed the other party's intentions, Zhao Tiezhu raised an eyebrow: "What, can your little fire dragon be transformed into an ice phoenix?"

He wanted to deliberately provoke the other party to avoid further delays. If Brother Chen returned later and acted impulsively, supporting domestic software and then domestic chips, it would be very troublesome.

"It's not popular anymore! I don't believe you can fix it so easily. Why don't you use your own new machines? Why bother coming to Orange?"

The middle-aged man's face darkened, and he was about to lash out when He Tingbo stopped him by raising his hand and pulling out a document from his briefcase, which contained a graph.

"Our K3V1 has undergone three architecture optimizations and added IPPS energy efficiency technology. Compared with Lianfa Technology, we can offer a 12% discount based on 10 hours of reliability testing data!"

The current price of Lianfa's chips from Orange is not much of a discount; it's 25 yuan per chip. Even with a 12% discount, it would be 22 yuan per chip.

However, this was not enough to sway Zhao Tiezhu to abandon the more mature Lianfa Technology chip solution and needlessly increase the quality control risks of Orange 1.

"Orange doesn't lack chip suppliers right now." Zhao Tiezhu waved his hand and crossed his arms, looking unapproachable: "Without something that can be commercially used on a large scale, who knows if you'll burn out motherboards again."

Even with a 12% discount, small workshops are still unwilling to use domestically produced chips.

He Tingbo suddenly approached, his eyes behind his glasses filled with determination: "Then I'll be even more sincere and offer a 30% discount!"

Zhao Tiezhu's pupils contracted slightly.

The Lianfaco chip costs 25 yuan per unit. If it is replaced with the K3V1, the cost per unit can be reduced by 7.5 yuan.

With 5 orders a day, we can save 37.5 yuan.

He touched the handwritten words "Market Manager" on his employee badge, deliberately drawing out the sound.

"I remember the K3v1 chip was only compatible with Microsoft's WP system, right? We use AnE Orange OS!" Zhao Tiezhu clapped his hands: "Our system is incompatible with your chip!"

Upon hearing that the other party's attitude had finally softened, He Tingbo immediately regained her confident demeanor as the "Chip Queen."

“We were prepared!” She snapped open the second page of the document: “We also have an Android-compatible version of the K3V1 ready, and we can also complete a customized adaptation for your Orange OS system within three days!”

She said that in the past three days, she had just reskinned Orange OS with Android Studio. There is no such thing as Orange OS; the underlying system logic is just derived from Android Studio.

As for the Android compatible version of the K3V1, it was originally prepared by He Tingbo for Huawei's new machine, but now it has come true by accident.

Zhao Tiezhu hadn't expected the other party to be so "difficult," so he could only continue asking questions.

"Do you have a one-stop solution like LinkTech for computing performance, image processing, and support modules?"

It seemed like the other party was deliberately making things difficult for him, but the more difficult the other party was, the happier He Tingbo was, because it meant that the other party really had concerns about using the K3V1 chip.

Today, He Tingbo came prepared.

"In terms of computing power, the K3V1 is indeed about 15% slower than the Lianfax."

She flipped to the third page of the document with a snap, her fingertip tracing the annotation "Targeted adaptation for Orange OS system, computational performance loss ≤2%", and pointed it out to Zhao Tiezhu.

"However, the solution from Lianfa Technology that is compatible with Android chips cannot actually unleash the full potential of the Orange OS system. Once the K3V1 is specifically adapted, the computing performance will only decrease by 2%, which is within the acceptable error range!"

Simply put, Lianfa's solution is a generic Android OS, and Orange OS cannot fully utilize its computing performance.

You're such a clever little devil! You made it seem like Orange OS couldn't unleash the full potential of the chip, even though it's clearly Orange OS that couldn't.

Zhao Tiezhu felt that if Brother Chen were here, he definitely wouldn't be able to hold out.

"As for image processing capabilities," He Tingbo said with a confident smile, "our K3V1 is 5% better than Lianfa Technology's, and the supported modules are exactly the same."

Zhao Tiezhu compared the parameters one by one, asking about everything from register width to cache configuration.

He Tingbo answered faster and faster, his eyes gleaming with excitement.

This isn't being difficult; the other party is genuinely interested.

When she presented the customized packaging solution for Orange 1, Zhao Tiezhu finally said, "Give me a day to think about it!"

"We eagerly await your good news!" He Tingbo handed over the customized proposal that had been rushed out overnight, making a serious and solemn promise: "We hope that Orange can give Haisi a chance. We will never let down our partners who trust us!"

As the two figures disappeared into the alleyway, the middle-aged man finally couldn't hold back any longer.

"President He, why offer such a large discount? We haven't even recouped the costs of three tape-outs yet. Isn't this just a waste of time?"

"No waste! As long as they're interested in our chips, that's fine!"

She said earnestly, "What we lack is not just experience, but also everyone's confidence!"

The K3V1 uses a 65nm process, and it's already two generations behind mainstream processes just because it was manufactured.

It already had inherent shortcomings, but it also carried the title of the first domestically produced mobile phone SOC chip, which meant that everyone's expectations for it were too high.

In her past life, everyone looked down on the Maritime Silk Road, but she was the most determined and eventually caught up in terms of craftsmanship despite being two generations behind.

Will Chen Mo's rebirth bring about different changes in this life?
It's certainly inspiring to go from lagging behind to keeping pace, but wouldn't it be even more exhilarating to go from lagging behind to surpassing?

He Tingbo adjusted his glasses: "President Yu isn't even willing to use our K3V1 for entry-level models. Haven't you noticed that morale has been a bit low lately?"

Even if Yu Dazui (CEO of NetEase) allows the new C8500 to use some of the 800 700 baseband chips, such technically proven chips are simply not enough to boost morale.

In addition to being responsible for chip research and development, He Tingbo also needs to unite the people of the Maritime Silk Road and continue to lead everyone through the darkness.

Though there be thousands of people, I will go.

Anyway, if no one buys the K3V1, the nearly ten million US dollars cost of the chip fabrication will definitely result in a loss. She'll just consider it as accumulating experience. She'll accept whatever Ren wants to do, no matter what.

"At least that Manager Zhao from earlier was more technically savvy and pragmatic than some purchasing directors from large companies!"

He Tingbo glanced back at the alleyway leading to Orange Technology, a triumphant smile playing on his lips.

Moreover, she had made ample preparations beforehand this time.

Now we'll go back and have the engineers start adapting the underlying system logic for Orange OS to K3V1.

If this plan succeeds, then the commercialization of K3V1 will have to be abandoned.

(End of this chapter)