Chapter 113 - Truly Worthy of Sony
Tian Yaoming continued to sigh, "You know, when you said that China hasn't even decided what network to adopt yet, it reminded me of the YD9100, which was just validated recently. Imagine, a powerhouse like the Fourth Research Institute spent two years developing a big brick phone. And the Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications even supported its mass production. Isn't that ridiculous?"
Su Yuanshan smiled and said, "The state can't take risks like we can. Given the circumstances, it was understandable that the Fourth Institute chose to follow the trend and develop a big brother phone."
The Fourth Research Institute Tian Yaoming referred to was officially called the Fourth Research Institute of the Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications. The YD9100 was an analog mobile phone — what was commonly referred to as the domestic "big brother" phone.
Thanks to the existing network infrastructure and clear market expectations, their progress was rapid. By May of this year, it had officially passed the Ministry's acceptance test. It was said that they had even established a company in Jiangyin to mass-produce it.
Because it was developed by an institute directly under the Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications, the YD9100 enjoyed some market and policy support.
In the world of vested interests, it was hard to say whether this was the reason GSM network trials only began in Guangdong Province two years later.
This was also why Su Yuanshan kept telling Tian Yaoming not to rush — aside from Yuanchip, there was hardly any company that truly cared about the current domestic market.
How do you know a company truly cares about a country's market?
Simple — the first thing they do is launch products in the native language.
From the big brother phones to pagers to early feature phones, none of them had Chinese language support.
It wasn't until the year 2000 that Motorola launched the first fully Chinese-supported model, the CD928+.
"Fully Chinese" meant that the menu, text messaging, and contact list were all in Chinese characters.
As a domestic company, Yuanchip naturally planned to launch a Chinese phone.
That was why, last year, Su Yuanshan had given Tian Yaoming unconditional support for three years, with no restrictions.
He hadn't expected Tian Yaoming to be so eager though — likely because he watched Yuanchip grow like wildfire, while he himself had yet to produce any tangible results.
"Anyway, no rush.
The operating system and input methods also need to catch up.
Later, we'll have to deal with molds and design compromises too — we have time," Su Yuanshan continued to reassure him.
"Alright then. I'll go work on the SMS system.
You go talk to your dad, have him find some people from the math department to help," Tian Yaoming said.
Su Yuanshan laughed and shook his head, "Better if you do it yourself.
You can explain your project much better than I can."
"Fine, I'll go.
By the end of the year, I'll take a trip to BUPT and see if I can recruit a team."
Watching Tian Yaoming rush out enthusiastically, Su Yuanshan returned to his desk.
To avoid putting too much pressure on him, Su Yuanshan didn't mention that besides Nokia, both Siemens and Motorola would also launch GSM phones within six months.
Given Yuanchip and Xinghai's current progress, even if they launched by the end of next year, it would already be considered fast.
Meanwhile, the battles over future network standards were beginning to show signs in the 2G era.
Besides GSM, there were IDEN, D-AMPS, and Qualcomm's IS-95, also known as CDMAone — each holding a slice of the market.
Ultimately, however, GSM would dominate globally — except in Japan, where they stubbornly created their own PDC standard.
(We'll skip the detailed comparison among the three standards for now.)
By the time 3G standards emerged, after the great wave of elimination, only three major players remained: CDMA2000 (an upgrade from IS-95), WCDMA (an upgrade from GSM), and China's own TD-SCDMA.
All three adopted CDMA-based technology.
Just like in the 2G era, 3G also saw some "visionary" players — for example, Intel, which proposed WiMAX while the world was already moving toward 4G.
Naturally, it went nowhere.
Among these, WCDMA and CDMA2000 would be adopted by China's Unicom and Telecom, respectively.
TD-SCDMA, proposed domestically, was adopted by China Mobile and was branded separately as "G3."
Why was TD-SCDMA assigned to the largest carrier, China Mobile?
Because it was a domestically proposed standard — a matter of national pride.
But in truth, TD-SCDMA was an "orphan" standard bought by Datang Telecom, an affiliate of the Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications, from Siemens.
Whether in technology or chipset support, it was far from complete.
As a result, it was easy to imagine how much China Mobile struggled with G3 in those years.
Meanwhile, Qualcomm's absolute dominance over Telecom's CDMA2000 and their full-machine licensing model meant that Telecom's handsets were always oddly expensive.
At present, however, everything was still in its infancy.
Just as Su Yuanshan said — no need to rush.
Although Yuanchip was a bit behind in 2G, if they started patenting CDMA-related technologies now, they could still enjoy the feast during the 3G era.
And when Qualcomm became the target of universal resentment, Yuanchip could align with European companies and join 3GPP to develop LTE (4G), delivering the final blow to the "patent bloodsucker."
LTE, after all, stood for "Long-Term Evolution" — listen to the name and you'd know:
an overly cautious, carefully worded name meant to assure telecom carriers that it was just an upgrade, not a revolution.
The whole industry was tiptoeing, afraid of upsetting carriers who had just spent billions building 3G base stations.
With the first sycamore leaves falling, autumn officially arrived in the provincial capital.
During the National Day holiday, the drama Springtime's Story, financed by Yuanchip, passed censorship smoothly and was sold to the TV station at a friendly price.
The success wasn't surprising.
The drama was positive, uplifting, aligned with the spirit of reform, and filled a creative gap.
Even if some suspected it was an ad for Yuanchip, not a single scene or line mentioned the company's name — making any accusations of product placement groundless.
When the review tapes were submitted, they included a brand-new VCD player without any visible logo.
The reviewers watched in amazement, stunned by the quality.
Meanwhile, Yuanchip's VCD production line also achieved mass production just in time.
They were now producing five hundred units a day, gearing up for the drama's broadcast.
Su Yuanshan wasn't stingy with advertising either.
He planned to ride the drama's popularity with a massive marketing campaign.
If production scaled up smoothly, he even intended to outbid Seagull Watches for the Spring Festival Gala sponsorship spot.
After the National Day holiday, Qu Hui and her team returned from the Chengguang Institute.
"Xiaoshan, it's not easy," Qu Hui said, sitting down in Su Yuanshan's office and wiping her glasses.
Her hair had grown longer, but she still looked sharp and lively.
"Huajing's engineers worked on it for a month," she explained.
"Under 2-micron conditions, they can barely achieve a 30–40% yield — barely acceptable for internal use.
As for multi-exposure techniques you asked about... forget it.
We don't have the technical reserves."
Su Yuanshan sighed inwardly. Truly, theory alone meant nothing without experience.
But he still smiled and asked, "Where's the main problem?"
"The workpiece stage," Qu Hui said, putting her glasses back on with a helpless smile.
"The two keys to the alignment system are focus adjustment and the workpiece stage.
Let's put it this way — if we hadn't helped, that lithography machine would never have moved.
Maybe after a few hundred manual alignments it might work."
"Pfft..."
Qu Hui continued, "The design of the stage itself is flawed.
China doesn't have a specialized workpiece stage manufacturer."
Su Yuanshan nodded. "High-precision stages require high-precision machine tools."
"Exactly.
So I'm thinking — why not develop a CNC system specifically for lithography?" Qu Hui said, smiling mischievously.
After playing around with PLCs for a while, she had found herself fascinated by mechanical engineering.
"I'm planning to enroll in a mechanical engineering Ph.D. program — part-time."
Su Yuanshan stared at her in surprise.
"Seriously?"
"Seriously.
There's huge potential in domestic mechanical engineering.
And I'm not aiming to twist bolts — I'll focus on mechanical design and automation."
"Good.
I fully support you," Su Yuanshan said without hesitation.
Qu Hui clenched her fist confidently. "Then it's settled!"
Su Yuanshan nodded with a smile.
He hadn't planned to give up on the mechanical sector anyway.
Not long ago, he had even had a fierce battle with several "Party A" clients.
According to the demands of companies like Erzhong, Shengfei, and Jiangchuan, the mechanical CAD software Yuanchip developed for them was supposed to be exclusive.
But their demands kept growing, getting increasingly unreasonable.
Finally, Su Yuanshan had no choice but to renegotiate.
Mechanical CAD would be commercialized — promoted and maintained by Yuanchip for broader development.
Naturally, the original clients were reluctant.
They believed the software encapsulated decades of their engineers' wisdom.
They weren't about to give it up for free, even if Yuanchip offered generous consultant fees.
In the end, Su Yuanshan had to pull out the original contracts, pointing clause by clause:
You asked for functions A, B, C, D, and E — but now we've given you M!
Faced with hard evidence, even the thickest-skinned Party A clients couldn't argue.
Eventually, the dispute escalated all the way to the ministry.
And the ministry ruled in Yuanchip's favor — asking everyone to think about the bigger picture of advancing China's mechanical engineering sector.
The outcome was satisfactory to all parties.
Just as he saw Qu Hui off, the phone rang.
It was a long-missed voice: Qin Weimin.
"Xiaoshan, I'll be back tomorrow," he said with a smile.
"And I'm bringing you a gift."
"What gift?" Su Yuanshan asked.
Qin Weimin laughed, "It's from Sony.
You'll understand when you see it.
Truly worthy of Sony."
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