07-16: Xiaomi has acquired about 6% of Chinese chip design company VeriSilicon Microelectronics; BOE’s Gen-6 AMOLED production line in Mianyang has begun mass production and shipment; etc.
Chipsets
Qualcomm Snapdragon 855+ has been announced as a successor to the 855. The new mobile platform is built for gaming, with cutting edge performance, improved graphics, an uplift in CPU performance, and robust 4G and 5G connectivity. (Android Central, Android Headlines, CN Beta, Qualcomm, Engadget)
Mobile device testing and certification service company Sporton International has teamed up with Qualcomm to gain US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) approval for 60GHz Wi-Fi solution based on the IEEE 802.11ay specification. (CN Beta, Digitimes, Techspot)
Xiaomi has acquired about 6% of Chinese chip design company VeriSilicon Microelectronics. This acquisition makes Xiaomi the fourth largest shareholder of the company. (GizChina, TechWeb, CN Beta)
Bitmain, a Chinese company that makes specialized computers for “mining” cryptocurrency, in Jul 2018 said it would invest USD500M in what was to be the world’s largest bitcoin-mining facility at the closed Alcoa smelter, which, crucially, was still connected to massive electrical lines. However, the plan is now being suspended. (CN Beta, Wired, Texas Standard)
Intel has announced that an 8 million-neuron neuromorphic system comprising 64 Loihi research chips — codenamed Pohoiki Beach — is now available to the broader research community. Loihi enables users to process information up to 1,000 times faster and 10,000 times more efficiently than CPUs for specialized applications like sparse coding, graph search and constraint-satisfaction problems. (Engadget, Intel, Engadget CN, iFeng)
Touch Display
Samsung’s patent shows a smartphone with a retractable screen. The screen extends on the right-hand side, giving users a tablet-sized viewing experience. The filing’s images also show a punch-hole cutout, a USB-C port at the bottom (along with a speaker grille), and no 3.5mm port. (Android Authority, LetsGoDigital, Sina)
The 3 materials under the de facto trade embargo from Japan to Seoul Korea are fluorine polyimide used in smartphone displays, photo resist for chip boards, and high-purity hydrogen fluoride or etching gas for chip cleaning. Samsung Electronics has denied that reports that the company has secured additional inventory from the Japan trip of the vice chairman Jay Y. Lee, but has ordered the management to prepare for future impact. Japan is responsible for 90% of global output in fluorine polyimide and photo resist, and 70% of etching gas. (CN Beta, Asia Nikkei, Business Korea, Pulse News)
BOE’s Gen-6 AMOLED production line in Mianyang has begun mass production and shipment, indicating their OLED display will be more sufficient. At the same time, the company has begun mass produced 6.47” water-drop curved OLED display. (CN Beta, China Daily, East Money)
SeeYA Technology, a semiconductor display company, has introduced 2 novel silicon-OLED micro displays—the largest and highest resolution micro display in the world at 1.03” 2560×2560 pixels, and a brightness of 3000nits; and 0.72” 1920×1200 pixel resolution. (OLED-Info, Yivian, Laoyaoba)
Biometrics
Taiwan-based Egis Technology (Egistec), which specializes in the design and development of fingerprint sensors, has been accused by Mainland’s Goodix Technology of infringing Goodix; patent concerning optical in-display fingerprint sensor technology. The complaint is filed recently with the Beijing IP court, according to Goodix, which has demanded CNY50.5M (USD7.35M) in compensation from Egistec. (My Drivers, Digitimes)
Phone
Huawei plans to layoff hundreds of its U.S.-based employees. The layoffs will reportedly be centered on workers involved with an R&D subsidiary called Futurewei Technologies. Huawei runs multiple Futurewei labs throughout the U.S., which are staffed by both U.S. citizens as well as foreign citizens temporarily in the U.S. (Android Authority, WSJ, Sina)
Huawei has registered the name Harmony for a mobile OS in the European Union. Previous names for the OS have included Hongmeng and Ark. (Android Central, LetsGoDigital, China Times, Sina)
Honor has filed a trademark application with various intellectual property organizations around the globe for its future X-series smartphones. The trademark filing includes – Honor 10X, 20X, 30X, 40X and 50X. (Gizmo China, IT Home)
According to TF Securites analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, Huawei may regain Google’s GMS certification and authorization before the end of Jul 2019. On top of this, he also claims that Huawei’s mobile phone shipments in 2019 is expected to reach 260M units. One reason is that Huawei’s market share in China has gone up exponentially. Another reason is that Huawei’s mid- and low-end models have regained sales in overseas markets. (CN Beta, TF Securities, Gizmo China)
Huawei Italy CEO Thomas Liao has revealed that the company would invest USD3.1B in Italy over the next 3 years. (CN Beta, Reuters)
Huawei SVP Zhang Jiangang has indicated he always believes that cooperation is a win-win solution. R&D and innovation is the core strategy, and he does not believe there is any company that uses self-developed / produced components. Thus, he implies that every component they use are from at least 2 suppliers. (CN Beta, My Drivers, Sohu, JQK News)
OPPO has filed trademarks for at least 20 devices under its K series—K1, K2, K3, K4, K5, K6, K7, K8, K9, K10, K11, K12 and K13; as well as K20, K30, K40, K50, K60, K70, K80, K90, and K100. Currently there are only K1 and K3 launched. (CN Beta, LetsGoDigital, iGyaan)
Realme 3i is announced in India – 6.2” 720×1520 HD+ IPS, MediaTek Helio P60 MT6771, rear dual 13MP-2MP + front 13MP, 3+32GB / 4+64GB, Android 9.0, rear fingerprint scanner, 4230mAh 10W fast charging, INR7,999 (USD116) / INR9,999 (USD145). (Huanqiu, GSM Arena)
Wearables
Huami Technology has officially released the AMAZFIT GTR new smartwatch with 2 sizes—47mm (1.39” 454×454) and 42mm (1.2” 390×390). They support NFC, Alipay offline payment, 5ATM waterproof, GPS+GLONASS dual star positioning, air pressure sensor, BioTracker PPG 24-hour uninterrupted accurate heart rate monitoring, etc. It is priced from CNY799 (42mm) and CNY999 (47mm). (GizChina, My Drivers, CN Beta)
Huami Technology’s basic smartwatch overall shipment has exceeded 3M units; smartwatch and smart band combined shipment has exceeded 1.5M units; and overall shipment of all 3 product line has exceeded 4.5M units. (My Drivers, Huanqiu)
Home
Honor president George Zhao has officially announced that Honor will be launching a brand new smart TV in the future. Honor is calling it “Smart Screen TVs”, as a combination of smart TVs and internet TV. (CN Beta, Sina, 36Kr, Gizmo China, My Drivers)
