Chapter 110: The Ace in the Hole

I moved to the conference room with the component layout and circuit diagrams Chilbong had brought.

The members who had been notified in advance were gathered in the conference room.

I wondered if they had already held several meetings without me.

In addition to the drawings, the walls were plastered with various materials.

Before starting the meeting,

I slowly scanned the materials on the wall.

Then my eyes stopped at one particular section.

“This part here…”

“Are you referring to the communication module?”

“Yes, is it correct that a noise filter is inserted near the power line?”

The RF engineer nodded in agreement.

“Two 100nF ceramic capacitors are connected in parallel to filter out high-frequency noise.”

“But why is the ground (GND) pad placed here? Isn’t it structured to pull the pattern all the way to a distant location?”

Chilbong was the first to catch on to what I was trying to say.

“…Could it be, are you referring to the current loop (Loop)?”

I nodded.

“If the ground is far away, there’s a high possibility that the high-speed signal will create a loop and cause resonance. In that case, RF noise is generated inside the loop, which interferes with the antenna signal.”

Chilbong exclaimed in surprise.

“So the noise traveled through the metal housing and affected the antenna.”

“Especially I2C, being open-drain, is very susceptible to external noise. When high-frequency noise overlaps with the data line, the slave device becomes unresponsive.”

“Then… what should we do to solve this problem?”

The RF engineer asked for a solution,

and Chilbong was the first to offer his opinion.

“Wouldn’t it be possible to eliminate the loop and straighten the current path by relocating the ground pad as close to the communication module as possible?”

He was definitely a smart one.

Despite having little experience, he came up with a solution close to the correct answer.

I added a more detailed supplementary explanation.

“First, align the VCC-capacitor-GND path as straight as possible, and then relocate the ground on the same plane.”

I displayed the drawing on the screen

and drew a rough picture with the mouse.

“The RF signal line pattern should be redesigned to be shorter and more concise to reduce the effect on inductance. And if possible, it would be better to process it as a strip line to eliminate interference with standing waves. Finally, adding insulating silicon masking or polyimide tape to the antenna housing contact area to block coupling with the metal housing should solve the problem cleanly.”

While some of the engineers listening let out exclamations,

others expressed concern.

“…If we do that, we’ll have to completely redesign the RFPCB.”

I quietly looked at the engineer expressing concern.

It was Lee Jong-il, who was in charge of designing the RFPCB.

“Do you have any ideas to solve this problem other than the method I mentioned?”

“…”

Lee Jong-il remained silent and did not respond to my question.

“If there’s no way to solve it, don’t waste time and start making modifications immediately. That would be much more efficient.”

With the final instruction to have the modified circuit diagram and RFPCB layout on my desk by tomorrow morning,

I left the conference room.

“As you instructed, sir, the communication problem has been completely resolved.”

Chilbong looked excited, though slightly out of breath.

The drawings were modified within a day,

and three days later, a prototype was made with the redesigned RFPCB.

After two days of detailed verification,

no intermittent errors were found in the communication module.

“What were the test conditions?”

“We conducted the tests under conditions about twice as tight as before. We performed repeated tests under various EMI conditions, and it passed all tests for communication sensitivity, stability, and handover.”

Upon Chilbong’s report, the members gathered in the conference room simultaneously sighed in relief.

Then Han Yu-ju reported additional review results.

“Here is the comparative data on error occurrence logs before and after the improvement.”

The table Han Yu-ju showed indicated that before the improvement, errors occurred 43 times in a 12-hour period,

but after the improvement, that number was marked as 0.

“Does this mean the problem is completely solved?”

I nodded in response to Hong Chung-ki’s question.

The tension in the conference room gave way to a current of relief and hope.

“Good. Now, please report on the mass production preparation status.”

After the development team’s report,

Lee Hye-ryeong, who oversaw manufacturing, continued with her report.

“The initial mass production will be 100,000 units. By conducting in-house QA and external certification tests simultaneously, we should be able to start the production line in full swing as early as this weekend.”

“100,000 units… that’s more than I expected.”

Since the concept of smartphones was still unknown domestically,

I couldn’t guarantee that all 100,000 initial units would sell.

“When we first showcased it to some employees, the preference for ‘Aurora Black’ among female staff was quite high.”

It was definitely a design that I thought women would like.

“Considering that, I thought we could easily sell about 100,000 units.”

“Okay. Make sure to have sufficient quantities ready within a month after the unpack event. Prepare without any hiccups.”

With that, I turned to Chilbong again.

“How are the products for the unpack event coming along?”

“For the unpack event display, we plan to separately manufacture 10 S-grade units.”

As soon as Chilbong finished speaking,

the conference room door suddenly burst open.

“Brother, we’re in big trouble!”

Seong-hwan rushed in, gasping for breath, and thrust a laptop toward me.

[Breaking News]

Ahsung Electronics unexpectedly announces ‘Titan’.

The smartphone ‘Titan (TITAN)’ is Ahsung Electronics’ secretly developed next-generation mobile, equipped with a self-developed AP…

“When… when was this announced?”

“Less than 30 minutes ago.”

Huh.

I never expected Ahsung Electronics to make such a surprise announcement.

Originally, Ahsung Electronics was still a year away from launching a smartphone.

I needed to confirm what had happened.

“Executive Vice President Hong Chung-ki, please check when Ahsung started developing smartphones.”

“Understood.”

Executive Vice President Hong Chung-ki left the conference room and returned about an hour later.

“After checking, it seems Ahsung Electronics began developing smartphones about six months ago.”

“Six months ago? That’s around the same time we acquired Pintech and started smartphone development, isn’t it?”

“It seems they deliberately did so after learning that we were developing a smartphone.”

I frowned.

“Deliberately? Are you saying they did it to counter us?”

“Yes, that’s why they set the announcement date to coincide with our unpack event.”

There was a significant difference in mobile brand recognition between Ahsung Electronics and Pintech.

If smartphones were announced on the same day, users would undoubtedly pay more attention to Ahsung’s Titan than to ours.

But that wasn’t the only problem.

“And the AP applied to Titan is the A-Core X1, which is one level higher than the A-Core S planned for our Quantum.”

Kaboom!

Tension filled the conference room at Executive Vice President Hong’s words.

One of the most critical components in a smartphone is the AP.

The mobile response speed depends on the AP’s performance,

and if a higher-level version is applied to Titan, it was obvious which smartphone users would choose.

“Wasn’t the AP issue already settled?”

Since APs for smartphones were only being made by Ahsung Electronics, I had made some preparations in advance.

“We agreed that they would supply the latest AP in exchange for cross-licensing the capacitive touchscreen patent…”

Executive Vice President Hong’s expression darkened.

Just from his expression, I could guess the reason.

“Since the circuit structures of X1 and S are different, we’ll need time to optimize the binaries.”

Han Yu-ju picked up on my words.

“As the representative mentioned, the structures of A-Core X1 and S are likely to be fundamentally different.”

Typically, when a new AP is developed, the memory interface structure and cache mapping method change from existing products,

requiring optimization work on Lunar’s kernel and binaries.

“Specifically, how much modification will be needed?”

“We’ll have to completely overhaul the memory mapping, power control routines, and interrupt tables within the Lunar kernel.”

The kernel, designed for the A-Core S version, was highly unlikely to be compatible with the X1 structure.

If transplanted as is, not only would performance drop, but freezing could occur in the UI.

“So it’s not just a compatibility issue?”

“Yes, and since X1 has higher performance, we’ll also need to rewrite the thermal control algorithms.”

Listening to Han Yu-ju, my expression naturally soured.

“How much time will the modifications take?”

Han Yu-ju hesitated, then cautiously replied,

“From kernel modifications to driver testing and benchmark verification… it’ll take at least three weeks.”

Silence fell over the conference room.

The unpack event was just five days away.

Modifying Lunar to match the X1 before then was physically impossible.

“So, we’ll have to proceed with the unpack event using the current A-Core S.”

Seong-hwan spoke, and Chilbong nodded gravely.

“The benchmark figures for the product with X1 and the one with S won’t even be comparable.”

According to the information Executive Vice President Hong had gathered,

the X1 had a higher clock-per-operation speed and twice as many GPU cores.

That meant Titan would outperform us in graphics capabilities.

“Hmm…”

I silently rubbed my chin with my hand.

It was safe to say Ahsung had intentionally set out to sabotage me from the start.

I couldn’t believe they would announce Titan just five days before the unpack event.

“Executive Vice President Hong, when can we start receiving the X1 supply?”

“They said they would supply the X1 version AP whenever we want.”

Since the capacitive touchscreen patent was at stake,

Ahsung had no choice but to supply me with the new AP.

However, the problem was the lack of time to optimize the AP,

and if we showcased Quantum at the unpack event as is, it would undoubtedly be overshadowed by Titan’s superiority.

‘What a dirty trick.’

I knew they were capable of such tactics,

so I couldn’t just sigh forever.

Moreover, I still had an ace up my sleeve to overcome this problem.