The plane passed through the clouds and headed straight to the other side of the ocean.

However, this time the chip negotiation was far less relaxed than the last time.

After all, Qualcomm has always been strong and has a large number of CDMA patents, making it the absolute overlord in the 3G era.

To put it bluntly, even if you don’t use Qualcomm’s chips, you still have to pay patent fees to Qualcomm!

However, in China from 2011 to 2013, this patent fee could still be avoided.

In recent years, domestically produced smartphones have been sold at low prices, and few have paid patent fees.

After all, if you really pay patent fees, a 2,000 yuan mobile phone costs 1,500. Qualcomm charges 300 patent fees, Ericsson charges 100, Nokia charges 100, Microsoft charges 100, Huawei also charges 100, Cisco charges 50...

Then don't sell it, it won't be enough to compensate you!

Patent fees are almost more expensive than mobile phones.

Therefore, domestic mobile phones these days can only be sold domestically without paying patent fees...

If you sell it overseas, you will lose the royalties alone.

But starting in 2014, Qualcomm also began to collect patent fees in China.

At that time, small brands were fine, and those with the highest sales volume had to pay!

From now on, small ones will have to pay...

Zhu Changlin couldn't help but said: "Boss, which chip company are you planning to purchase this time?"

Wang Yi waved his hand: "We will decide later based on the conditions offered by the two companies. Chip procurement is a minor issue. The key thing is how to get rid of dependence and achieve self-research on chips!"

With the current innovation, Xingyi mobile phone will have no problem selling for 3,000 yuan.

But if you want to be high-end and challenge Apple's dominance like Huawei, it will be difficult. You must have something of your own!

If you don’t have your own stuff, you’re just a comprador, you’re just supply chain integration, you’re just assembling mobile phone brands, it’s okay to be a mid- to low-end product, but it’s all in vain to be a high-end product!

This is also the reason why Huawei and Apple can sell at high prices, but it is difficult for Xiaomi to reach the high end.

Because Apple has its own system ecosystem, its own processors, and a large number of patents.

Similarly, Huawei also has its own processor, its own baseband, a huge number of patents, and a 100% self-developed system that is not compatible with Android!

To put it bluntly, a brand without authenticity and hard core can never be high-end!

Therefore, in order to reach the high end, Xiaomi also needs to develop its own chips.

But Xiaomi doesn’t have the technology to develop chips, so what should we do?

Datang Lianxin has it!

Therefore, in October 2014, Xiaomi and Datang Lianxin established Songguo Electronics, with Xiaomi holding 51% of the shares and Lianxin holding 49%, to jointly develop chips.

The main employees are from Lianxin, and the technology also comes from the SDR1860 platform technology developed and owned by Lianxin Technology!

Xiaomi provides funding and market.

The next year, Pinecone Electronics developed the SOC chip - The Paper S1.

Although it is only a mid-range system chip, it is still considered a success.

However, the subsequent Thermal S2 chip failed to tape out, and the road to SOC development ended without any problem.

It was not until 2021-2022 that the professional image processing chip ThePaper C1, the fast charging chip ThePaper P1, and the battery management chip ThePaper G1 were successively launched.

It completely covers different fields such as mobile phone image processing, fast charging and battery management.

But unfortunately, the most important processor, or SOC, has made no progress.

As for the difference between SOC chips and application processing chips, it can be understood as the difference between the whole and the part.

A SOC chip integrates CPU, GPU, baseband...

In 2011, application processing chips and baseband chips existed separately.

A mobile phone has an application processing chip and an external baseband chip.

By 2013, Qualcomm began to integrate the baseband chip into the processor chip, which became a SOC system-level chip!

In order to hit the high end, Xiaomi has never given up on self-developed chips.

If Xingyi mobile phone wants to be high-end, it must also plan chip research and development in advance!

And the earlier the layout is done, the better, after all, it is a long process.

Even now, we have to start recruiting people and start preparing to build the Xingyi Semiconductor Department!

But how to do it specifically needs to be thought about carefully.

No longer thinking about these things, Wang Yi closed his eyes and fell asleep.

When I woke up again, it was daytime outside the window.

Arrived at the Empire!

On this day, Wang Yi took off from the Imperial Capital in the morning and flew for more than ten hours. When he landed in California, it was still morning.

Going from day to day is a novel experience.

But what surprised Wang Yi was that as soon as he landed at the airport, he saw someone holding a sign to pick them up.

"Is it Qualcomm?" Zhu Changlin was a little surprised:

"Boss, your lavish investment of five million in Neon Country caused a sensation even in the empire, and they even sent someone to pick you up!"

Wang Yi smiled slightly: "The airport pick-up is airport pick-up, but it may not be Qualcomm!"

Based on his understanding, Qualcomm may not be so proactive even if it orders five million chips.

There's no way around it. Having too many patents these days means you're the boss! Having strong baseband means you're the boss.

Fortunately, Qualcomm still had competitors in 2011 and was not so arrogant yet.

In two years' time, competitors Texas Instruments, Nvidia, and Intel will all be useless, MediaTek will also be ineffective, and Qualcomm will really be crazy!

Wang Yi and others walked over.

In addition to the bodyguard Wu Shuang who is proficient in English, he is accompanied by two legal staff who are proficient in English.

"Hello, I am Nakat William, director of mobile chip marketing department at NVIDIA."

Carter, who spoke fluent Mandarin, smiled and extended his hand.

Nvidia sent him here because he speaks Mandarin well.

"Hello, Mr. Carter." Wang Yi was not surprised.

Sure enough, it was Nvidia who came to pick me up, not Qualcomm.

There is no way, the same dual-core chip, Qualcomm 8x60 sells much better than Nvidia tegra2.

Nvidia's dual-core processor inventory is under great pressure.

So when Nvidia learned that a big customer like Wang Yi with a five-million-dollar order was coming, Nvidia received the news and directly arranged for someone to pick him up and intercept Qualcomm!

"I heard that Director Wang is coming. We, Director Huang, have prepared it early and would like to treat you to lunch!"

Afraid of Wang Yi's rejection, Carter quickly said: "Director Huang is nearby, waiting for you!"

The airport where Wang Yi landed is relatively close to the Qualcomm headquarters and hundreds of kilometers away from the NVIDIA headquarters.

Originally, Wang Yi planned to go to Qualcomm first and then to Nvidia.

But since Nvidia’s old bosses are waiting around here, we have to meet him first no matter what.

It can only be said that Lao Huang worked hard to sell dual-core chips.

There is no way, there is no baseband chip, Nvidia's dual-core chips are just selling slowly.

It is precisely because of this that Lao Huang was forced to lead Qualcomm by half a year and come up with the world's first quad-core processor Tegra3!

"Okay, let's meet Director Huang first!"

Wang Yi said with a complicated expression, he also wanted to meet this guy with amazing sword skills.

He was stabbed many times in his previous life!

"Don't worry, I'll take you to the hotel first. I've booked everything for you. Director Huang will come directly after a while." Nakater said with a smile.

"Thank you so much." Wang Yi sighed.

It seems that NVIDIA needs this order too much.

Tegra3 will be on the market in four or five months, and Tegra2 is in a hurry to clear its inventory!

Maybe we can negotiate a good price!

Of course, the baseband is also a big problem. If you buy an Nvidia processor, you have to buy another brand of baseband, and you have to adapt and debug it...

In fact, what Wang Yi is more interested in NVIDIA is next year's quad-core processor Tegra 3!

Arriving at the five-star hotel where he was staying, Wang Yigang put down his luggage.

Lao Huang appeared at the door, smiled and extended his hand: "Dr. Wang, nice to meet you, nice to meet you!"
To be continued...