38: Sign a confidentiality agreement

When Dr. Lu led the team in designing the soaring cloud s1, the entire team was just over a hundred people. The main reason they could design it with such a small staff was that chips back then weren't as complex as they are now.

Last year it was still 45nm and 32nm processes, but this year it has already upgraded to the 28nm process, followed by 14nm, 7nm, and 5nm. This means the number of transistors in a chip is increasing, and the design requirements are becoming more and more complex.

chip development is not just about the CPU anymore; it's moving towards integrated SoCs. A chip's SoC design team has also begun to divide labor, with different teams responsible for the CPU, GPU, ISP, DSP, and so on.

At the same time, as the number of transistors increases and design difficulty grows, more Engineers are required.

Chen Chen looked at the hundreds of Engineers before him. He believed that with Red Star's continuous development, more talent would surely choose Red Star as their platform, and Red Star's chip team would continue to grow.

After all, top talents earn about the same anywhere; they value the future development of the company or platform more.

"Everyone here needs to sign a non-disclosure agreement for the technical materials I'm presenting today."

Aside from Dr. Lu and Lu Weibing, who were already in the know, all the Engineers, including Lu Weiqi, looked at Chen Chen in surprise.

After gesturing for Dr. Lu to bring out the non-disclosure agreements, Chen Chen continued:

"In the next two to three years, China will gradually start to fully promote 4G networks. In the 3G era, the entire patent landscape was monopolized by foreign companies. Now, we have developed a 4G baseband chip ahead of time. This baseband is not only fully compatible with existing 4G network standards but also compatible with China's own TD-LTE 4G network standard."

"Most importantly, this baseband completely bypasses current foreign patents and comes with its own supporting communication technologies: multi-mode multi-band, LTE dual-SIM, RF, and so on. This is a crucial step for us to break through the foreign technological blockade."

After everyone signed the non-disclosure agreements, Chen Chen handed the hard drive containing the full set of technical materials to Dr. Lu, hoping they could master this technology within the next year or two and integrate the baseband into their own CPU.

On the way back, Lu Weiqi asked Chen Chen excitedly:

"President Chen, where did you get this technology? Even our own Engineers had to sign non-disclosure agreements."

Lu Weibing nudged his arm, signaling him not to ask so much.

Lu Weiqi saw Chen Chen smiling without saying a word and tactfully shut his mouth.

The mobile baseband was only the first step. In the future, Red Star would definitely develop its own independent ISP, DSP, and even integrate a Neural Processing Unit—NPU—into the chip.

"By the way, Uncle Lu, have any other domestic manufacturers released new models recently?"

Lu Weibing opened the memo on his phone, flipped through it, and said:

"Next month, Meizu has a Dream Launch Event at the Water Cube. Huawei is expected to hold a new product launch in November. The word is that it will be a large-screen flagship phone."

"Hmm, it's about time for Meizu to start their 'concerts.' I'll definitely go listen when the time comes. As for Huawei, their new phone wouldn't be the mate series, would it?"

"It's not confirmed yet, but it's said that the code name Yu Chengbei gave the new phone is M."

Chen Chen thought to himself. It seemed his butterfly effect had already caused a change in the timeline. Normally, Huawei's mate series wouldn't officially debut until March of next year.

Now it was being released in November. It seemed either Yu Chengbei was getting anxious, or the success of the Kunpeng mobile phone had given him some confidence.

Chen Chen knew that starting next year, competition in the mobile phone market would further intensify. Fierce market competition would give birth to all sorts of different phones. Currently, except for the screen and charging, Red Star still relied on suppliers' solutions for other configurations.

It wasn't that they couldn't design it themselves; Red Star was already working hard to expand its engineering team. Some Engineers were also heading to major suppliers with their own missions, hoping to cooperate on developing unique features.

There was also the new type of battery. Chen Chen handed this technology over to the Fast Charging Lab. After all, fast charging and the battery go hand-in-hand; higher charging power requires better battery cells for support.

Now the entire Fast Charging Lab had expanded to over 30 people, divided into three groups: the Fast Charging Group, the Battery Group, and the Power Group.

Chen Chen wasn't too worried about the new battery. Xiao Ai had already provided a full set of improvement plans. They just needed to follow the technical data to replicate the new battery, apply for patents, and finally cooperate with battery factories for production.

Chen Chen was full of expectations for the performance of the new battery... As September came to a close, the Kunpeng mobile phone and hongxing 2nd generation had been out for nearly a month. Three rounds of sales had already caused the reputation of these two phones to start spreading.

Some users who had bought the phones and used them for over ten days began to post their opinions on the two phones online.

Some of the unique aspects of Starlight OS 2.0 on the Kunpeng mobile phone also began to be uncovered and exposed by netizens.

The operation was smooth, the design was beautiful, the user experience was very intuitive, the features were comprehensive, and the applications were highly usable and practical.

"I was originally going to wait for Fruit's new phone. I thought only Fruit was the main force behind the mobile revolution. But after seeing the specs and technology of the Kunpeng mobile phone, I couldn't resist getting one. I've been using it for half a month now, and I feel that except for the system smoothness and animations not quite matching Fruit—which is a common android issue, there's no way around it—in other aspects, especially charging and photography, it completely blows Fruit away!"

As a tech enthusiast who had been active in the digital circle for many years, Old Yao's evaluation made many people feel it was incredible.

From his post, it was clear that Old Yao had already placed the Kunpeng mobile phone on par with Fruit.

The rise of smartphones began with Fruit. In the eyes of many domestic techies, the Apple phone and Steve Jobs were the GOAT!

Even more users who had bought the Kunpeng mobile phone replied to the thread, agreeing that Old Yao's assessment was spot on.

The Kunpeng mobile phone could definitely hold its own at a starting price of over 3,000 yuan.

"@Old Zhang Talks Tech, remember the bet you made. I've taken a screenshot. I'll definitely give you a big surprise then."

"Haha, right now on the Tmall and JD platforms, sales of the Kunpeng mobile phone have already exceeded 40,000 units, plus several thousand on Pinduoduo. I bet @Old Zhang Talks Tech is going to have to eat his fill this time."

[An Old Fish]: "Let's not talk about Old Zhang for now. Let me share my experience after half a month of use. It can be summed up in one word—fast! Not only is the system fast, but the charging is fast, and the photography is fast too."