Start earning money as the girl next door

After a large number of industrial chains are complete, relevant talents are also complete. It is easier to find designers there than anywhere in the world.

After all, there aren’t so many weird and unpopular electronic parts elsewhere in the world to inspire these designers.

Chapter 492 MediaTek

At the end of December 2005, Lizi Technology was just established.

Li Xiaojun, who was poached as CEO, took a few people to Pengcheng in the south.We are planning to set up a research and development laboratory in Huaqiangbei to recruit people and develop products at the same time.

Of course, the first thing was to go to Pengcheng MediaTek branch.

MediaTek's development is inseparable from the mainland's copycat phone market, and it is also known as the godfather of copycat phones.

The invisible king of copycat phones, although MediaTek later regarded this period of history as black history and concealed many of its original experiences of relying on copycat phones to enter the network SOC market.

But in fact, this period of time for the supplier behind the copycat phone was MediaTek’s peak period.The reason is - the concept of SOC was invented by MediaTek!

Later, mobile phone chips from Huawei, Qualcomm, Apple, Samsung, Unisoc, etc. all had a term - SOC chip!

And this SOC chip originated from the solution developed by MediaTek for copycat phone manufacturers in the Pearl River Delta!

This solution has changed the mobile phone industry!Its historical significance is no less than that of the compatibility technical standards for PC computers developed by IBM.

Before the advent of SOC chips, developing mobile phones probably required dealing with at least a dozen major suppliers, and the development cycle was at least years.

MediaTek pioneered the turnkey solution in 04, which means that the chips for the main functions required by mobile phones are pre-developed and integrated into a SOC. Even the operating system is pre-installed with semi-finished products. system.

Basically, copycat phone manufacturers can complete product development in 3 to 6 months.In fact, the so-called research and development mainly involves purchasing parts such as keyboards, casings, batteries, displays, cameras, etc. According to MediaTek's instructions, assembling these parts onto the SOC will make a finished mobile phone!

If you want to save costs, you can cut off the camera, use a simpler or even black and white screen, and use cheap accessories in all aspects.You can build a copycat phone that costs more than 100 yuan. Most of it is a MediaTek SOC, and the cheapest one can be less than 100 yuan.

Even if it is a little more expensive, MediaTek's SOC at this time is not much more expensive. Two to three hundred yuan is considered a high-end product.

This kind of high-end product, if you add a camera and polish it a little, it will actually have the configuration of a thousand-yuan mobile phone on the market.

A copycat phone of this level can be sold for [-] to [-] RMB, which is still profitable, and the sales are not low.

At this time, the vitality of Huaqiangbei's copycat phones is mainly due to technical support, which is MediaTek's SOC.

"Is your company a subsidiary of MediaTek? Does it provide SOC chips?" Li Xiaojun said straight to the point.

"Yes!" The staff of Pengcheng MediaTek smiled.

It seems that MediaTek in Pengcheng is mainly engaged in sales, and MediaTek's R&D and production are actually still in Wan Province.

The mainland market is the main sales market.

As far as the level of MediaTek's SOC is concerned, in fact, major manufacturers basically dismiss it because it is indeed a mid-to-low-end product.

But I can’t stand it, it’s so cheap and so cheap!

If MediaTek has its own flaws and makes 2G mobile phones, it probably won’t do much business.

Its chip design capabilities are incomparable to those of Nokia, Motorola, and Samsung teams.

Even some well-known manufacturers in mainland China looked down on MediaTek's SOCs in the early days, thinking that using them to make mobile phones would be akin to copycat phones.

However, MediaTek relied on the rise of copycat phones. It can be said that it has quietly gained a market share that major manufacturers disdain, and laid the foundation for the top mobile phone IC design manufacturers in the world.

Its technological research and development strength has also gone from weak to strong.

"If I use your factory's SOC to make MP3 and MP4, and it requires the ability to access the Internet, what will the effect be?" Li Xiaojun asked.

"Yes, it is possible. Our built-in system can be pre-installed with a WAP browser and can also use email. However, the memory of the SOC itself is limited. Generally, it can only store a few hundred text messages, and the space is full. If you want to surf the Internet or To watch videos or listen to music, you need to add a memory card yourself. Our SOC supports expansion of memory cards. Many MP3 or mobile phone products are more advanced and use our SOC and then purchase outsourced memory chips. The storage capacity has been expanded," MediaTek staff said.

"Okay, I have a general understanding. Which is your highest-performance SOC currently?" Li Xiaojun asked.

"MT6225, this SOC has the highest configuration currently, and its main frequency is higher than others, reaching 104MHZ. However, it lacks some pictures and MP6226 format instruction sets compared to MT4.

However, the function of MP3 or MP4 can be realized through software, so it is not a defect. The main defect is that MT6225 does not have camera shooting and Bluetooth functions.

MT6226 has these functions. However, the main frequency of MT6226 is 52MHZ, which lacks a lot of performance. "MediaTek staff began to introduce.

"Is there an improved version of your MT6226 in the future?" Li Xiaojun was not satisfied with both SOCs.

The main reason is that the 6225 lacks camera and Bluetooth functions, and it is obviously not cost-effective to add additional ones.

However, the main frequency of MT6226 is only half that of MT6225. In terms of performance, 6225 is obviously more suitable for the Internet.

"Our company will indeed make improvements based on 6226 in the future." MediaTek staff said.

"Can I buy a small amount of samples and your instructions first for research and development?" Li Xiaojun asked.

"Of course, welcome!" MediaTek staff introduced the prices of the two SOCs. 6225 and 6226 are actually high-end products.

6225 mainly provides clock performance, so there is no time to integrate functions such as Bluetooth and photography, and part of the instruction set is not as rich as 6226.

But the 6226 supports more instruction sets, has Bluetooth and supports up to 30 pixel photography. Well, the camera pixels it supports are also rudimentary.

But generally speaking, MediaTek is now adding functions step by step, gradually iterating, and has various functions that are only available in high-end mobile phones.

But for the time being, MediaTek is still a novice in the field of mobile phone chips. Even if it develops based on ARM, it is still practicing in the copycat phone industry.

"In terms of price, our two models have the same price. For small batch purchases, the price is 300 yuan per piece, and the minimum purchase starts at 100 pieces. If the quantity is large, we can negotiate a lower price based on the purchase volume." MediaTek staff are like those in a vegetable market. The vendors are usually talking about the chip business.

"Okay, 100 pieces of each of the two SOCs. Do you have an invoice?"

"Yes, of course! We are a formal technology company and we must have invoices."

Soon after, Li Xiaojun completed the purchase.Just like returning from shopping for groceries, I returned to the company's R&D department office in Pengcheng.

Pengcheng's R&D department rents a small factory building.

Not long after the company arrived, it had already recruited some mobile phone, MP3, and chip-related personnel through the relationship between Li Xiaojun and IDG Capital.

It would be difficult to ask these people to design chips.

However, there are all these people who can save hardware through parts and components on the market.

After all, in the heavily copycat environment here, there are mostly enthusiasts of all types.

Enthusiasts know everything.

The technology is too awesome, but the craftsmanship is high, and the relevant hardware is used to make products. Things that are very complicated in the eyes of ordinary people are ordinary in the eyes of these people.

"Mr. Li is back!" This group of newly recruited R&D personnel from Lizi Technology looked at Li Xiaojun with a hint of excitement, "Have you bought MediaTek's SOC?"

"Bought!" Li Xiaojun carefully put down some boxes in his backpack.Then, he distributed some information provided by MediaTek to everyone.

Everyone probably looked at it casually, and generally felt that it was clear.

This is the difference between an insider and an outsider.

A layman may think it is a sacred book.

These people are experts, but they think this is so stupid!

"Everyone practices first, just like making a copycat phone. You can play with these SOCs. First, buy mature parts on the market, make a product, test it, and find out the feeling. Then, we will officially start our design Work!" Li Xiaojun said.

"This is not easy! If we make it like a copycat phone, we can probably get a new mobile phone in a few weeks." Xu Meng, who spoke, was originally an employee of Bird Mobile, a fighter among mobile phones. Unfortunately, in the market competition, he has been losing money one after another. Loss.

As a result, Bird Mobile continued to lay off employees, and Xu Meng was one of the laid off technicians.

It seems that Bird mobile phones are like Nokia, providing a lot of talents to the domestic mobile phone industry.

The most famous group of former employees of Bird Mobile are the entrepreneurial team of Transsion Mobile. In an era when many people were staring at Apple and Android, Transsion went to Africa to sell mobile phones.

There are many low-end configurations that are not available in the domestic market. Transsion acquired them in Africa at a cheap price and quickly became the king of mobile phones in Africa.

Selling low-end mobile phones, do you think the gross profit margin is very low?Actually not low!

Except for Huami OV, Apple, and Samsung, there are probably not many mobile phone manufacturers that can compete better than Transsion, right?

Many people laugh at Transsion’s low performance, and its hardware configuration is at least five years behind the domestic mainstream.

But being able to sell it with low configuration means that the hardware cost is very low and the gross profit margin is not low.Low unit price does not mean low profits.

Just because the domestic market and the markets of developed countries don’t like it doesn’t mean that the African market doesn’t like it.

Bird itself did not run to become the King of Africa, but a group of former employees discovered business opportunities and built Transsion mobile phones.Use Huaqiangbei's copycat methods to conquer a large area of ​​​​the world in Africa.

The other one is Chen Hongliang, an employee of TCL’s mobile phone department.

It is a victim of TCL cutting expenses and laying off R&D personnel in its domestic mobile phone department.

The reason is that after joining the WTO, the domestic mobile phone market has accelerated its opening to the outside world. Like other domestic brands, TCL's mobile phones have been steadily defeated by mobile phones from major international manufacturers.

However, TCL is trying to enhance the competitiveness of TCL's mobile phone business by buying overseas brands and technologies.As a result, losses increased.

Since TCL acquired overseas Alcatel last year, it has continued to shrink its business and withdraw funds.

TCL is not as prosperous as it was later.

Later, TCL was not only a comprehensive home appliance giant, but also a domestic LCD panel giant second only to BOE.

In addition, TCL also uses part of the LCD panel technology, which is actually somewhat related to photovoltaic power generation.

After making a big bet on the success of LCD panels, we made a big bet on the success of the photovoltaic industry.

Later, as TCL won the two major areas of LCD panels and photovoltaics, TCL's boss Li Dongsheng gradually improved his reputation.

The current head of TCL, Li Dongsheng, has been criticized by domestic and foreign media as the worst manager of the year for a long time.

How did the worst of the year come about?It was TCL that made a big bet on the mobile phone industry, merging Alcatel's mobile phone business and entering the market.

But the reason why Alcatel was sold to TCL was a mess. The continued losses dragged down TCL's overall efficiency.After continuous losses, he will naturally be evaluated as the worst leader.

But in fact, Li Dongsheng himself is still a very strategic boss.

In 2004, the domestic mobile phone industry continued to be impacted by overseas giants. Li Dongsheng's idea was to merge overseas brands and export products overseas.This kind of thinking cannot be said to be wrong.

It's just that mobile phones are not within Li Dongsheng's ability, and Li Dongsheng's front line is too long.Therefore, it is common for military strategists to sometimes fall into underestimation.

If you can gradually accumulate strength later and make a comeback, you are a true hero.

“The MP3 project is a practice project, and the boss gave me the project to test me.

I will test you. I will not appoint mainly project R&D leaders for the time being. You can all compete.

Hand in homework before the Spring Festival.

Save up a mobile phone or MP3 product, and whoever makes a good product will be responsible for the project.Any comments? "Li Xiaojun said.

"Then I have to perform well!" Chen Hongliang smiled, "Actually, at TCL, I thought about making a MediaTek machine, but it was optimized before it was approved."

Li Xiaojun smiled: "If you have the ability, rest assured that the company will not let you down, there are equity incentives!

The company is not a traditional mobile phone or MP3 manufacturer, but an Internet manufacturer.

Our incentive method is also similar to Silicon Valley. If you do well, you will get equity.In the future, if you go public, you can also achieve financial freedom!

As for the sales of product development, the parent company behind us owns Weibo!

There’s even Weibo International!

Weibo currently has about 3000 million registered users and 2000 million daily active users!

After the product comes out, there is no need to worry about no publicity and sales channels. "

The technical backbones present showed their fighting spirit.

Except for the hardware department.

The headquarters of Wenwen Jingjing Technology Company is far away in Jiangcheng County.

At present, some people are already developing to adapt to the MediaTek SOC version of Jingjing Reading Network and Weibo Network.

Although it is difficult, it can still be done.

Mainly because the operating systems of MediaTek's mobile phones seem to be very crude, and they don't look like carriers of Internet products.But in fact, it is compatible with JAVA, so many games and applications written in JAVA can run on MediaTek mobile phones.

Redeveloped Jingjing Reading mobile application and Weibo mobile application.It needs to achieve a better viewing experience than the WAP browser.

Moreover, the mobile terminal has less storage, and the code needs to be simpler and more resource-saving.

Therefore, this is also a training exercise to test the company's programmers on specific projects.

Chapter 493 2006, new year and new atmosphere

2006 1 Month 1 Day.

Entering a brand new year.

On the first day of the new year, Zhao Han updated his Weibo: “In the new year, I wish young people to become stronger.