Next, Leng Jingmo continued to nervously explain the details of the personal terminal, Tianzhou, to Boss Huang.
In general, the Tianzhou mobile phone's user experience was on par with the iPhone 4 released in 2010, leading the world by a little over three years.
Including the camera and screen, both reached the level of the iPhone 4.
“How much room for improvement do you think this phone has in terms of technology?” Boss Huang asked abruptly after playing with it for about an hour, while Leng Jingmo was lost in thought.
“I think there’s a lot of room for improvement!” Leng Jingmo said without hesitation. “First, regarding the chip, I’m in charge of testing chip performance, so I know that the Zixiao 1st generation personal terminal chip currently used in this phone still has considerable room for improvement. This personal terminal is not fully utilizing the chip’s computing power.”
The Zixiao 1st generation chip was the 5-input 5-output (5-input, 5-output) chip architecture developed by Ni Guangnan and his team through sleepless nights, and then successfully manufactured using the properties of black gold. Its current manufacturing process is equivalent to that of traditional microchips produced using 40-nanometer process technology.
At this time, although ASML had released its new generation of immersion lithography machines, the first chip exceeding 40 nanometers had not yet been produced and was still in the design and manufacturing stages.
However, even if such a chip were produced, its overall capabilities would not match the computing power of a 5-input 5-output chip. It’s just that current technology is very immature, the architecture still needs adjustment, and the chip’s yield rate is not high. Therefore, the Zixiao 1 chip was essentially a semi-finished product in Boss Huang’s eyes.
Even as a semi-finished product, its capabilities were still terrifying, bringing excitement to the entire Jiangnan Optoelectronics Research Institute.
“This is mainly a system issue. After all, we only completed the writing and testing of the 5-input 5-output system for personal terminals at the beginning of this year. Moreover, this system has not completed final testing and is still being adjusted. Therefore, it cannot fully unleash the potential of the Zixiao 1st generation chip in a short period of time.”
“According to my calculations, if this chip can be fully utilized, the computing performance of this personal terminal can be increased by another 1.25 times!”
“Oh, so the next generation Tianzhou won’t need a new chip, just fully utilize the performance of the Zixiao 1st generation chip?” Boss Huang said with a smile.
“That’s right… but I think the chip used in the second generation Tianzhou should be renamed Zixiao 2!” Leng Jingmo said, lowering his head.
“You’re quite clever!” Boss Huang glanced at Leng Jingmo, a trace of admiration unconsciously showing in his eyes.
“Unfortunately, this personal terminal is still garbage!” Before Leng Jingmo could react, he saw Huang He angrily throw the Tianzhou terminal in his hand to the ground. The phone’s screen shattered instantly, dying before it even truly began its journey.
“Boss, how can you do this!” For a moment, Leng Jingmo was furious. Ever since he joined the institute, almost all his work had revolved around this Tianzhou terminal. For Leng Jingmo, this terminal was like a child he had watched grow up. Now, having been smashed to the ground and turned into scrap, it pained Leng Jingmo deeply.
“Don’t be angry. If I don’t smash it today, it will kill us tomorrow!” Seeing the fleeting anger on Leng Jingmo’s face and his heaving chest, Boss Huang was no longer angry. Instead, he spoke in an unusually gentle tone.
“Boss, our Tianzhou is not that bad. I’ve used phones from Apple and Google and compared them with Tianzhou. They don’t even qualify to carry Tianzhou’s shoes. Tianzhou is not as bad as you say!” Leng Jingmo was almost in tears.
“No, this phone has too many problems. The previous unlocking animation was an unbearable issue!” Boss Huang patted Leng Jingmo’s shoulder and then showed him his palm. “Then there’s the heat dissipation problem. Look at my hand, isn’t every spot on my palm that was in direct contact with Tianzhou turning red?”
“From the fifth minute Tianzhou started operating, the temperature in my palm must have exceeded 40 degrees Celsius, and the phone’s temperature never dropped after that. My entire palm has been almost cooked by this Tianzhou. The redness you see is actually a mark of low-temperature burns on my palm.”
“Since you started testing this phone, your palm must have become very sensitive, constantly itching and hurting. That feeling, not intensely painful, but like ants biting your palm all the time!”
“By the way, your palm must also often get blisters, your skin becomes red and swollen, and sometimes even corroded. Am I right?” As Huang He spoke, Leng Jingmo couldn’t help but start touching his palm.
Boss Huang had clearly hit the nail on the head. It was just that Leng Jingmo had never realized that his palm was suffering from low-temperature burns from Tianzhou, thinking it was a problem caused by the dryness of the laboratory.
“If you sell a phone like this to consumers, your Tianzhou first generation will be out of the question!” Huang He sighed.
“It’s funny, really. I guess your research center has also discovered the heat dissipation issue, but instead of solving it, you want to use it as an excuse to apply for the right to use a high-energy particle collider. I really don’t know what’s in your heads.”
“Is it yourselves, or us at Jiangnan Group, or our future users?” Leng Jingmo remained silent. He recalled a meeting where a colleague had also mentioned the heat dissipation issue.
But unexpectedly, the team leader responsible for heat dissipation at that time had casually said that the high external temperature of Tianzhou meant their heat dissipation was good, quickly transferring the chip’s heat to the surface of Tianzhou, so there was no problem with heat dissipation.
If the phone felt hot, one should use Tianzhou less, which would also protect their eyes and prevent excessive addiction to Tianzhou.
At that time, Leng Jingmo thought this made sense and even felt that the leader was a great person who cared about the public’s health. Now, thinking back, it made him sweat profusely. Leng Jingmo truly felt that the entire institute was permeated with arrogance.
The more achievements they researched, the more arrogant the research center became. Let alone ordinary users, even Boss Huang and these research giants rarely remembered them, otherwise Leng Jingmo himself wouldn’t have lost so much face.
“And the screen!” Huang He tapped the screen in his hand. “I know this screen is currently the best touch screen in the world produced by Samsung. The visual texture is indeed strong, something our Jiangnan Group’s current technology cannot achieve. I have no objection to you directly using this screen!”
“But why didn’t you think of meticulously studying this screen, understanding its working principles, and obtaining more detailed parameters before matching it with Tianzhou?”
“Instead, you probably just plugged it in and used it directly. Initially, it seemed fine. But once Tianzhou starts multitasking, frequent screen switching will occur, causing noticeable color changes in certain areas, and then the entire screen will dim involuntarily!”
“I switched applications more than ten times in a row just now, and the screen went almost black. I had to shine a flashlight directly onto the screen to barely see what was displayed.”
“However, if I leave it still for ten seconds or so, the screen will automatically restore its brightness… This problem never occurred with Apple or Google phones, did it!” Huang He said.
“Boss, I am aware of this problem. We have specifically studied it and found that it is a problem with the screen’s backlight. Once there is frequent signal switching, it will cause issues with the backlight sensing system. However, once the display stabilizes, the backlight will return to normal!”
“And Google and Apple’s phones cannot handle multitasking. If they switch more than a dozen different background apps in a short period, their phones will directly freeze. Only our phones can handle such frequent thread switching, which causes problems that cannot be reflected in their phones to appear on ours!” Leng Jingmo quickly explained.
“See, you yourself are very clear about the problem, so why didn’t you solve it if you knew there was a problem?” Huang He asked again.
“Yes, I reported it to my supervisor, but the supervisor said that unless someone is not normal, no one would switch background applications so frequently, so this problem wouldn’t occur under normal circumstances and didn’t need to be paid too much attention to.”
“Moreover, if we were to solve the problem, we would have to disassemble the entire screen assembly and replace the backlight components inside. This is not our job. We are researchers, not electronics manufacturers!” Leng Jingmo said softly.
“Slap!” Boss Huang slapped the wall and said through gritted teeth, “Starting tomorrow, all of you will go to the factory in batches and work on the assembly line. Those who are unwilling will all be sent to the Northwest to plant trees!”
Leng Jingmo lowered his head in fear. If his colleagues knew that his words would cause them to work on the assembly line for a month, he would probably suffer social death.
Next, Boss Huang pointed out more than 20 other issues, including both hardware and software problems.
All these problems were deliberately overlooked due to the indifference and negligence of the R&D personnel.
Boss Huang admitted that Tianzhou’s technical level was very high, far surpassing Apple and Google.
But Tianzhou’s design spirit was almost nonexistent. Many designs were completely counter-intuitive, and these designs were almost entirely for showcasing technology, completely ignoring the actual user experience.
Therefore, Huang He had no doubt that although Tianzhou’s technology was world-class, it would also be the first to be ruthlessly abandoned by consumers.