At 14:00 on February 28, 2017, at the Beijing National Convention Center, Xiaomi Pinecone Chip Pengbai S1 was released. This also marks Xiaomi becoming the fourth mobile phone manufacturer after Samsung, Apple, and Huawei to have both mobile phone and chip R&D and manufacturing capabilities. At the conference, two new mobile phones, Xiaomi 5C and Redmi 4X (Redmi still uses Qualcomm) equipped with Pinecone chips, were released.
Among the press conferences of domestic technology companies, I only watched two, one was Smartisan Technology and the other was Xiaomi. Compared with Lao Luo's eloquent stand-up comedy, Lei Jun's speech is undoubtedly inferior.
Lei Jun’s non-standard Hubei Xiantao Mandarin is unhurried and unhurried, coupled with his simple and honest appearance, making his speech inexplicably like drinking good tea, tasteless at first, but often It can reach people's hearts.
As a technology enthusiast, I watch technology companies’ press conferences not because of the products they release, but to catch a glimpse of the PPTs and speakers on stage.
As a mobile phone manufacturer, the importance of mobile phone chips is self-evident. Xiaomi has also missed opportunities in the mobile phone market several times before because its chips were controlled by Qualcomm and MediaTek. In fact, Xiaomi has been building momentum for its own Pinecone chip for a long time.
In the past two years, the outside world has been badmouthing Xiaomi. Xiaomi’s domestic sales have been declining, leaving it far behind Huawei, OPPO and vivo. Xiaomi, which has always attached great importance to online, seems to have lost its previous Internet thinking, so Xiaomi began to fully build offline Mi Homes and authorized repair points across the country.
Xiaomi’s brand upgrade path is also quite unsatisfactory. Note, Plus and MIX series focus on high-end products. Xiaomi, which has never hired celebrities, has also invited many celebrity endorsements. However, it has not helped Xiaomi get rid of low-priced products. The image of mid- to low-end brands.
Once the public forms a habitual perception of your brand, it will be difficult to change it in a short period of time. In fact, instead of adding several new high-end series, it is better to add a new high-end brand.
The release of the Pinecone chip independently developed by Xiaomi is undoubtedly a milestone for Xiaomi, and it has successfully won a good strategic advantage for the entire future development.
No wonder Lei Jun said at the press conference: The chip industry has huge investment and extremely long cycle. The common saying in the industry is "starting with 1 billion, and the results will be achieved in 10 years." Making chips is a "narrow escape". Why does Xiaomi still need it? Do? Because chips are the commanding heights of mobile phone technology, if Xiaomi wants to become a great company, it must master core technologies.
The press conference started with the promotional video of "My Heart Is Raging". The picture was of surging waves, which was quite heroic. It seems that Xiaomi has also put a lot of thought into expressing its desire to be at the forefront and technology-driven innovation and development. Of course, it is also related to the name of the newly released Pinecone chip.
This was followed by a 5-second countdown, creating a more ceremonial opening and attracting the audience's attention to the stage.
Lei Jun played a video of "Watching the Black Technology of Xiaomi Note 2 Launch Conference in Three Minutes" at the scene, reviewing the features of Xiaomi Note 2 and Xiaomi MIX. The reason why Lei Jun chose these two mobile phones as the opening scene has a profound meaning.
In the past year of 2016, these two mobile phones were Xiaomi’s important exploration of fever spirit and black technology, and were of great significance to Xiaomi’s mid-to-high-end transformation. Although sales may still not be as good as Huawei's, these two products have also brought Xiaomi some praise from foreign and domestic media.
Rebus began to recall Xiaomi’s long-standing pursuit of innovation and its glorious years. Xiaomi has been ranked among the "Top 50 Most Innovative Companies in the World" released by BCG for the second time since its establishment in 2010. Xiaomi was also on the list of "The World's Most Innovative Companies 2017" released by Fast Company, ranking 13th.
He said that Xiaomi always adheres to technological innovation, which is what makes Xiaomi cool.
Lei Jun said that if Xiaomi wants to go far, it must make a breakthrough in core technology. This is why Xiaomi makes its own mobile phone chips.
Mobile phone chips are almost the most highly integrated components on the planet, with 1 billion transistors integrated into a chip the size of a fingernail. Moreover, the investment in chip production is huge and the cycle is extremely long. A common saying in the industry is "start with 1 billion and achieve results in 10 years." This requires massive funds, great courage and enough patience.
Then, Lei Jun began to tell the story of the hardships behind the pine cone chips.
On October 16, 2014, Pinecone Electronics was established. So far, 3,612 patent authorizations have been obtained. This "Special Forces" moved quickly and was released for the first time on June 20, 2015.
At 1:43 a.m. on September 24, 2015, the Xiaomi Pinecone chip made the first call. Just two days later, the screen lit up for the first time. This means that the Xiaomi Pinecone chip was successfully taped out for the first time, and basic hardware research and development was successfully completed.
In the next 17 months, the Xiaomi Pinecone team continued to conduct tuning tests and prototype verification... After 28 months of hard work, the Xiaomi Pinecone chip officially meets everyone today!
The first Pinecone chip is named ThePaper S1. ThePaper S1 is not only a CPU, it is actually a self-developed SoC (System on Chip chip-level system) platform, including CPU, GPU, ISP , radio frequency baseband and other core components of mobile phones.
ThePaper S1 is designed with eight-core 64-bit A53 architecture, 28nm HPC process, and the CPU frequency is 4*1.4GHz 4*2.2GHz. The GPU is Mali-T860 MP4 (or possibly MP2), clocked at 800HMz. Integrated baseband (upgradeable), supports Cat.6, and the Wi-Fi baseband in the processor is also developed by Xiaomi. 14-bit dual-core ISP image processor supports dual noise reduction optimization, making night scenes clearer.
Judging from the benchmark performance, the overall performance of ThePaper S1 is in the mid- to low-end range in the SOC market.
Thanks to all partners for their strong support, and special thanks to the government’s special fund for their support.
This is the first time I have seen a technology company thank the government at a technology conference. China has always emphasized independent intellectual property rights and Chinese intelligent manufacturing. It is not surprising that Xiaomi Pinecone chip research and development has received support from the government’s special fund.
Lei Jun said at the press conference: "Xiaomi Pinecone ThePaper S1 is not a PPT processor." At the same time, at this press conference, Lei Jun officially released the first new phone equipped with ThePaper S1 ——Xiaomi 5C, and announced that Xiaomi 5C will be officially launched on March 3.
When Lei Jun described the thinness and lightness of Xiaomi 5C, he was obviously a little nervous. Some words were repeated many times, making him seem a bit nagging and panicked.
The camera part is almost further optimized and improved on the basis of Xiaomi 5S. It is equipped with a 1.25μm large-pixel camera sensor. Compared with ordinary mobile phones, the amount of light entering a single pixel is increased by 24%. Compared with ordinary mobile phones, it can take clear and bright photos in dark light environments, with richer details and less noise.
The price is still very cost-effective, 1,499 yuan, and will be released on March 3.
After sorting out Xiaomi’s mobile phone product series, Lei Jun released a low-end model, the Redmi 4X.
Redmi 4X is equipped with a Snapdragon 435 processor, a 5-inch screen with a resolution of 720P, and a large 4100mAh battery. The storage is divided into two versions: 2GB 16GB and 3GB 32GB. The front-facing 800 Megapixel camera, rear 13-megapixel camera, size 139.24 mm × 69.96 mm × 8.65 mm, weight 150g.
In terms of price, the 2GB 16GB version is 699 yuan, and the 3GB 32GB version is 899 yuan.
Lei Jun said that Xiaomi hopes to do every detail well so that every product can subvert everyone’s imagination.
Finally, the Xiaomi conference also released the 1080P version of Xiaomi body fat scale and Mijia smart camera.
At this point, the press conference ends.
I believe that friends who have watched many technology company press conferences will find that the PPT backgrounds at many press conferences are dark, either pure dark or dark gradient. This is because many large-scale conferences use LED screens, and dark backgrounds will not look so dazzling. The color of the fonts is mostly white. The color matching of other color blocks is more bright and eye-catching. The content is also relatively concise and concise. There is only one sentence on one page, and a lot of high-definition pictures are used on the page. The customized PPT I made for 36 Krypton’s press conference before was based on the PPT style of Xiaomi’s previous press conference, which was indeed more concise and grand.
As for Rebus’s speech, it was powerful at the beginning but lacked staying power. It even lost its status in the middle, with too many wordy words. Although it is not as funny as Lao Luo, it is rare that there are no mistakes or accidents when switching between PPT pages. It seems that every time Lao Luo gives a press conference, something unexpected happens in the PPT.
If we want to talk about Rebus' other flaws, it is that he frequently looks at the teleprompter, which somewhat affects the perception. But considering that the speech lasted for an hour and 15 minutes, it was understandable that he was looking at the teleprompter during that time.
In any case, Xiaomi is a cool company. I believe that with the release of the Pinecone chip, Xiaomi will surprise you step by step.