Reborn in 2005, starting with repairing mobile phones

Zhou Chengyu adjusted his glasses.

Lin Dong looked at the three of them.

Third, people.

He paused.

"I brought three back with me on this trip."

The three of them exchanged glances.

"Radio frequency, architecture, embedded systems."

Lin Dong said, "They will arrive gradually within a month."

He looked at Zhou Chengyu.

"Didn't you say you were short-staffed?"

Zhou Chengyu was stunned for a moment.

Lin Dong looked at him.

"RF, you need someone to coordinate the algorithm, right? We have that. Embedded systems, you need someone to write the low-level drivers, right? We have that too. Architecture, you need someone to handle the casing stacking, right? We have that too."

Zhou Chengyu opened his mouth, but couldn't say anything for a moment.

Lin Dong smiled to himself.

You're the one who talks the most.

Am I awesome or not?

Zhou Chengyu adjusted his glasses and took a deep breath.

"Mr. Lin," he said, "we're still short two."

Zhou Chengyu spoke.

"The chip. And the system."

Lin Dong paused.

The meeting room fell silent.

Everyone was looking at him.

Lin Dong was silent for two seconds.

Then he coughed lightly.

"Yes," he said, "there will be."

He paused, then glanced at the three people in front of him again.

"Let's start with Engineer Zhang."

Zhang Mingyuan sat up straight.

"The power supply ripple problem has been resolved."

Lin Dong said, "For the next month, your task is to work on the third version of the motherboard stacking solution. I need to see the partitioned layout of the RF, power, and logic units, as well as the overall system heat dissipation simulation."

He paused.

"Once Cheng Yu arrives, you'll need to coordinate with him on the structural aspects. Let's get started now."

Zhang Mingyuan nodded.

"clear."

Lin Dong turned to Zhou Chengyu.

"Dr. Zhou."

Zhou Chengyu pushed up his glasses.

"The touch algorithm continues to be optimized. The dynamic step size test is working, and the next step is to suppress accidental palm touches in multi-finger recognition."

Lin Dong said, "This is the core of user experience. The extent to which we can achieve this directly determines whether our phone can be memorable."

He looked at Zhou Chengyu.

"Is there a problem?"

Zhou Chengyu shook his head.

"no."

Lin Dong looked at Su Xiaowen one last time.

Su Xiaowen had already put away the design drawing and was waiting for him to speak.

Lin Dong looked at her.

"That drawing represents the final direction. The complete engineering drawings will be ready in the next month."

He said, "Dimensional tolerances, assembly relationships, material specifications—not one can be omitted. Li Guohui is waiting for your drawings to start work."

Su Xiaowen nodded.

"clear."

Lin Dong leaned back in his chair.

"A month from now, Cheng Chuan and his team will be in place. I want to see your achievements seamlessly integrated with theirs."

He paused.

Meeting adjourned.

The three people stood up and walked outside.

Zhang Mingyuan walked to the door and suddenly stopped.

"President Lin."

Lin Dong looked at him.

Zhang Mingyuan paused.

"That aluminum material..."

Lin Dong nodded.

"Use it as you like."

Zhang Mingyuan didn't say anything more, turned around and left.

The meeting room fell silent.

Lin Dong sat in the head seat and did not move.

Uncle Cai and Zheng Hao glanced at him, waiting for him to speak.

Lin Dong didn't say anything.

He simply leaned back in his chair, staring at the closed door.

A few seconds later, he picked up the pen on the table and drew a few strokes on the notebook in front of him.

"Please have a seat," he said. "Let me sort things out."

Uncle Cai and Zheng Hao nodded and sat quietly.

Lin Dong lowered his head and began to write.

I. Personnel

He made a list.

Hardware (motherboard/circuit): Zhang Mingyuan is in place.

Touch algorithm: Zhou Chengyu is in place

Industrial Design: Su Xiaowen is ready

Radio Frequency: Cheng Chuan has been selected and will be on duty within one month.

Structure: Cheng Yu has been confirmed and will be on duty within one month.

Embedded Systems: Ding Xiao has been selected and will be on duty within two weeks.

System: Vacant ×

Chip: Vacancy ×

He paused for a moment and drew two question marks after "system" and "chip".

Core team 7/9.

These are the only two missing.

II. Manufacturing Capacity

He switched to another line of work.

Dongguan "Dongfang Precision" factory: Three five-axis CNC machines capable of producing high-precision metal structural parts.

With a yield rate of 94%, the husband-and-wife team of Li Guohui (Chief Engineer) and Wang Mei (Factory Manager) kept a close eye on the project.

Currently available services include: phone mid-frames, metal casings, and precision brackets.

The following cannot be done: screen bonding, motherboard surface mounting, and complete system assembly.

He drew a line under "cannot be done".

These need to be manufactured by contract manufacturers.

III. Key Materials

He continued writing.

Metal structural components: aerospace-grade 7050 aluminum, arriving at port in two weeks (end of July).

Screen: Nowhere to be found ×

Battery: No solution found ×

Camera: Nowhere to be found ×

Connector: Nowhere to be found ×

Memory chips: No sign of life ×

RF front-end devices: No results yet ×

Power management chip: Nowhere to be found ×

Main control chip: Nowhere to be found ×

He stopped and looked at the long list of "nothing to be found".

It was completely empty except for the metal.

IV. What could you buy in 05?

He thought for a moment and then added a line below.

Screen manufacturers: Samsung, LG, Sharp, Toshiba. They mainly produce screens for feature phones now; large screens for smartphones aren't widespread yet. You can buy them, but you'll have to customize the specifications.

Batteries: ATL (Amperex Technology Limited), BYD, Lishen. ATL was only recently established in 2005, but it was already supplying several major manufacturers. Customization is available.

Cameras: Sony, OmniVision, Samsung. In 2005, mobile phone cameras generally had 30 to 130 million pixels, which was sufficient.

Memory chips: Samsung, SK Hynix, Micron, Toshiba. NOR Flash, NAND, and DRAM are all readily available.

RF front-end components: Skyworks, Qorvo, and Murata are all available.

Power management chips: Texas Instruments, Qualcomm, Maxim. Many general-purpose solutions are available.

Main control chip: This was the biggest problem. In 2005, there were very few companies that could make mobile phone main control chips.

Texas Instruments: OMAP series, used in many smartphones.

Samsung: We have our own solutions, mainly for our own use.

MediaTek: Just getting started, primarily targeting the knock-off phone market.

Intel: We have XScale, but we're about to abandon it.

He drew a circle under this line.

Buy a ready-made one first. For the first prototype, use Texas Instruments or MediaTek.

V. Systems and Chips

He wrote two more lines.

Operating system: In 05, Android had not yet been released, and iOS was not yet open to third parties.

Windows Mobile is too slow, and Symbian is dying. The only option is to modify Linux.

Self-developed chips: We don't have that capability right now. We'll buy them first, and then discuss it further once we have all the necessary chips and enough money.

VI. Funds

He continued writing.

That batch of aluminum from San Francisco: profits at least doubled.

Payment arrival time: August-September (goods arrive at port + sale + payment received)

After this money arrives: R&D will no longer need to be so frugal.

VII. Research and Development Progress

He glanced at the three people who had just left, then continued writing.

Module Manager Progress

The power supply ripple issue has been resolved in the second version of the motherboard stacking simulation by Zhang Mingyuan.

Zhou Chengyu's core touch algorithm has been successfully implemented; now they are tackling the challenge of preventing accidental palm touches.

The final design by Su Xiaowen has been finalized and is now in the engineering drawing stage.

RF front-end Cheng Chuan (not yet arrived) awaits startup.

Structure stacking process (not yet available) awaiting startup.

Embedded low-level Ding Xiao (not yet arrived) awaits startup

VIII. Overall Progress

He drew a line at the end.

If making a mobile phone requires 100 steps—

He has now taken about 15 steps.

Core team: 7/9 (lacking system and chip components)

Manufacturing capabilities: They can only make metal parts; everything else has to be outsourced.

Key material: Only metal, everything else is hollow.

Funds: Almost there

Research and development progress: The hardware is running simulations, the algorithm is being optimized, and the design is being drawn up—all still on paper.

He put down his pen and looked at the page.

It's not even close.

Fortunately, the most difficult part—the people—is almost all together.

The rest is just a matter of taking it one step at a time.