Top of the Great Era

Chapter 3223 Restrictions
There are three high-end chip manufacturers: Qualcomm, Samsung and Apple.

Apple's chips are not available to the public.

That leaves only Qualcomm and Samsung.

Now that Qualcomm's latest flagship chip, Snapdragon 810, seems to have some problems, it seems that the only option left is Samsung.

Zhou Buqi was also a little unsure about this, "How big is the gap between Qualcomm's secondary chips and flagship chips?"

"Well... the gap is still quite large." Zhou Shaoning gave a simple explanation. "High-end chips are used in high-end phones, and secondary chips are generally used in mid-to-high-end phones. According to the habits of the past few years, the market price difference between smartphones equipped with flagship chips and secondary chips is generally between 100 and 150 US dollars."

"What about performance?"

"The performance gap is also obvious. The Snapdragon 808 is a six-core design, while the Snapdragon 810 is an eight-core design. There is a big difference in processing power. The GPU performance is also obvious. The Snapdragon 808 supports up to 2K, while the Snapdragon 810 supports 4K."

"Hmm?" Zhou Buqi immediately grasped the point, "The secondary chip can only support 2K? Doesn't that mean the latest OLED display in the Aster7 solution can't achieve the desired display effect?"

Zhou Shaoning nodded, "Yes, it is not up to standard in many aspects. It's like a car with high configuration, but once the engine fails, all other functions will be reduced. It looks like it has high configuration, but in fact it can't be driven at all."

Zhou Buqi narrowed his eyes and said, "So the best choice is Samsung's chip."

"It seems that it is true."

At this time, Zhou Shaoning also felt strongly the trouble of being controlled by others.

Because of the relationship with Boss Zhou and the early layout, Aisda's development was very smooth, and it quickly opened up the global supply chain market. Over the years, it has hardly felt the embarrassment of being controlled by others. This time, it can be said that it was personally felt.

Zhou Buqi asked: "Samsung's latest flagship chip has great performance?"

Zhou Shaoning said: "It is the same standard as Qualcomm, maybe a little worse, but at least the heating is not that serious. I heard that Samsung may also have some big moves."

"What action?"

"This year, Samsung's high-end phones may completely abandon Qualcomm and use its own Exynos chips. Last month, Samsung launched the high-end Galaxy S6, which uses its own chips."

"Last month? Qualcomm's chip came out?"

Zhou Buqi knows that the smartphone industry is divided into three parts.

In order to avoid collisions, the three companies are deliberately cutting time.

The most high-end models are released separately, Samsung in March-April, Asda in June-July, and Apple in September-October. However, the ultimate rival in the smartphone industry is Apple. Although Apple's sales volume is not high, its profit is extremely high, eating up 3% of the profits in the entire smartphone industry.

The main reason is that autumn and winter are the peak seasons for mobile phone sales.

It was taken away by Apple.

How could Estar and Samsung accept this?
Therefore, both sides have their own plans against Apple and have their own strategies of launching a large number of products.

For example, Samsung released the new Galaxy S4 in April this year, but that’s not all. In September, they will also release a high-end Galaxy Note, mainly to impact Apple and grab market share in the fall and winter. It’s similar for Asda. In October and November, they will hold a new product launch conference mainly for Motorola, and will also release a high-end Motorola phone to compete in the fall and winter peak season.

Zhou Shaoning said: "The Snapdragon 810 chip was officially announced last week, but in fact, long-term cooperative mobile phone manufacturers could place internal orders as early as February. Samsung's Galaxy S2 did not use the Snapdragon 6 chip. They must have tested this chip before and found it unsuitable, so they used the backup plan and chose the self-developed chip."

Zhou Buqi nodded and said, "Well, that should be the case."

"There is a problem now." Zhou Shaoning was very worried. "Samsung's chip shipments have always been high, but high-end chips have always been rare."

Zhou Buqi said: "It's not surprising. The output is related to market demand. Mobile phone manufacturers need high-end chips, so they all go to Qualcomm. Even Samsung's own mobile phones have to purchase Qualcomm chips. It's not surprising that the output of their self-developed high-end chips is very low."

Zhou Shaoning said: "That is indeed the reason, but the situation this year is very complicated. I believe that many mobile phone manufacturers may give up the flagship chip Snapdragon 810. Either choose Snapdragon 808 or choose Samsung's solution. But Samsung's self-developed high-end chips have always had a very low output, and major mobile phone manufacturers have not optimized Samsung chips, so they may not be able to keep up with the progress."

Zhou Buqi asked: "Samsung is developing the Galaxy Note, right?"

"Well, in all likelihood, we will still use our self-developed Exynos chip." Zhou Shaoning made a request to his boss, "I think you need to communicate with Li Zairong as soon as possible to see if there is a chance to resolve this issue. If it really doesn't work, we can only choose Snapdragon 808."

Once Aster7 adopts the secondary chip Snapdragon 808, the brand power of the product will be weakened.

The flagship phone is equipped with a flagship chip.

6◇9◇Book◇Bar

This is the tradition of the mobile phone industry!
The flagship model is equipped with a secondary chip. This gives the market the impression that you are being too greedy. Are you just trying to make money?

Not to mention the suppression of mobile phone configuration.

If Snapdragon 808 is used, the highest configurations used in the Aster7 series will be greatly reduced without computing power, and their performance will not be able to be fully utilized.

However, if Samsung chips are used, there is still a big problem.

In the past few years, mobile phone manufacturers have been targeting Qualcomm chips when doing design, optimization and compatibility testing, and have accumulated a lot of experience. If they rashly switch to Samsung chips at this time, they will have to start from scratch and optimize from the beginning.

Zhou Buqi asked: "If Estar uses Samsung chips, can it keep up with the progress?"

Zhou Shaoning is very confident about this. "Other companies can't do it, but Aster can! In terms of efficiency, no company in the world can compare with domestic mobile phone manufacturers. Mobile phone manufacturers such as Microsoft, LG, HTC, Sony, and Panasonic may take 10 months to complete a set of optimizations, but we can completely compress the work period to 1 month. If we can decide to adopt Samsung's solution now, we can complete the optimization before Aster7 is launched on the market."

Zhou Buqi did not hesitate and immediately contacted Li Zairong. He did not waste any time and said bluntly: "Qualcomm's latest flagship chip Snapdragon 810 seems to have many technical problems."

Li Zairong smiled and said, "At present, it seems to be true."

Zhou Buqi said: "I saw that the Galaxy S6 you just released uses a self-developed chip solution."

Lee Zairong said exaggeratedly: "Samsung has decades of experience in the chip field. We have a longer history than Qualcomm. In the long run, our chip solutions will definitely surpass Qualcomm. You also know that we have invested $120 billion in the United States in the past two years, focusing on semiconductors. In the next three years, we will invest another $200 billion. This Snapdragon 810 will not be an isolated case."

"Yeah, I had a hunch as well." Zhou Buqi agreed with him in a friendly tone, "I heard from them that the OLED screens supplied by Samsung are in good batches and of high quality. They have been worried that Samsung will have other intentions in the cooperation. I said not to worry, Samsung's LCD panel business and mobile phone business are two different companies, and the mobile phone business will not lead to supply chain restrictions."

Li Zairong quickly said: "Of course, Samsung is not a monopoly enterprise. We will adhere to the principle of fair competition in the market."