Chapter 979 - Card up the Sleeve
Chapter 979 Card up the Sleeve
The first-day launch of Beep Beep Charging was quite popular.
Lithium-air batteries sounded like something out of a science fiction movie; even though not everyone was driving electric vehicles, most people were curious.
All kinds of gossip and stories had spread around on social media.
The national holiday brought the popularity of Beep Beep Charging to a whole new peak!
Even owners of gasoline cars were interested in this novel technology; some people even registered an account just to post it on social media.
Registering an account was free anyway.
Regardless, the marketing campaign was very successful. Both Li Tinghui and the mall didn't expect the "lithium-air battery + wireless charging" combination to be this popular. The shopping mall even saw a surge in customer traffic.
Li Tinghui looked at the increasing user registrations and felt relieved.
Regardless of whether the future follow-up would go as smoothly…
At least this phase was over!
Actually, wireless charging wasn't super high-tech stuff.
Wireless charging technology had already been extensively researched and developed internationally.
For example, when Audi developed their new electric vehicles, they designed a solution to reduce transmission efficiency loss. Their solution was to use a liftable wireless charging system and move the transmission coil closer to the bottom of the electric car, thereby improving the power transmission efficiency.
This could be traced back to 2014, when South Korea planned on building a 12-km long "wireless charging road". However, due to its high maintenance cost, this project was never completed.
Beep Beep Charging, on the other hand, had a three-step strategy. The first was to occupy more than 80% of the shopping malls and residential parking lots in Shanghai. The second step was to extend throughout large-sized commercial districts in the Yangtze River Delta city group, eventually expanding throughout the country.
As for the third step, which was the ultimate form of this technology, was a wireless charging road. Which meant a 50% coverage of the entire Yangtze River Delta highway network.
Of course, they had to take it one step at a time.
However, it seemed like this startup was getting quite scary…
Jinling Institute for Advanced Study.
Carbon-based semiconductor laboratory.
A group of people wearing white coats were busy working in front of a piece of experimental equipment.
After several months of hard work, by cooperating with Shenyang Machine Tool and Baosheng Group, they were finally able to create this "chemical vapor deposition + etching" machine.
This machine was like the lithography machine in the field of carbon-based semiconductors. It was able to preliminary process raw materials and "stick" the carbon nano transistors onto a double-layered graphene material at a specific angle.
A few months ago, the carbon-based semiconductor laboratory was only able to achieve transistors with a width of 150nm, but now, this number had been reduced to 80nm.
Other than high processor performance electronics such as computers and mobile devices, 80nm based chips were applicable in many places.
The smaller the transistor size, the better. However, most fields didn't require that much processing power.
For example, surveillance and networking equipment…
Of course, this semiconductor laboratory wasn't planning on making security camera processors. Nor did they have anything to do with the latest "Dragon One" series of chips. Instead, they were related to the latest wireless charging technology.
When a sound of gas emission was heard, the researchers surrounding the experimental equipment gasped.
As they looked at the data presented on the computer, Professor Wu Tianqun had a look of ecstasy on his face.
"We did it!"
Lu Zhou, who was standing nearby, asked, "It's done?"
"Yeah!" Professor Wu Tianqun nodded and replied confidently, "It could've been better! I'll show it to you later!"
Lu Zhou didn't have to wait for long.
Soon after, a thumbnail-sized processor was removed from the equipment.
Lu Zhou looked at the chip stored in a brown-tinted glass cover. He looked both shocked and relieved.
This was the second chip produced by the carbon-based semiconductor laboratory.
The first one was used on the calculator; there was nothing special about it. As for this one, it would be used in wireless charging receiver and transmitter devices, hence it was considered high tech.
Everyone knew that because of problems related to electromagnetic conversion, wireless charging technology could roughly be divided into two parts—receiving and transmitting. Specifically, the magnetic materials, the chips, the coil module, scheme design, etc.
The coil module and magnetic material were easy to deal with. They weren't considered high tech, nor did they have any patent barriers. However, the chips were different.
Almost all of the technical difficulty was concentrated in the design of the receiver chip and system integration.
So far, the main customers of these technologies were mobile phones. However, electric vehicles were also soon going to be a customer of this technology.
In fact, other than developing chips in-house, Beep Beep Charging had many international chip manufacturers to choose from. Actually, the first batch of charging station chips was produced by international manufacturers.
However, Huawei's HiSilicon, which Star Sky Technology owned a part of, had shifted from "pure research and development" to "research and development + production". Hence, it would be a waste to not use the carbon-based chips.
When the time came, they would replace all of the internationally produced chips with their own chips.
As Professor Wu Tianqun looked at the chip in Lu Zhou's hand, he spoke like an excited child.
"Oh my god, after two months, we finally did it! We should give this a good name!"
In fact, Professor Wu didn't want Lu Zhou's input at all; he was just too emotional.
Unfortunately, Lu Zhou began to think about it seriously.
A good name?
Sounds difficult…
Lu Zhou thought for a long time. Professor Wu Tianqun was about to take the chip away and put it in storage before Lu Zhou spoke.
"We'll call it… BB system."
Wu Tianqun: "…?"
Researchers: "… ???"
Lu Zhou: "?"
Suddenly…
The atmosphere became awkward.
Lu Zhou didn't know why these noob researchers were staring at him.
Emmmm…
Is something wrong with this name?
Just when Lu Zhou began to wonder if this was a good name, Professor Wu Tianqun broke the silence.
"Um… This name won't work. First of all, it doesn't sound nice. Also, this is different from the Beep Beep charging stations; people will mix the two together!"
"You're right," Lu Zhou said. Seeing how so many people disagreed with his name, he said, "So what do you think we should name it?"
Wu Tianqun spoke firmly.
"Thor!"
"Thor?"
"Yeah!" Wu Tianqun nodded and explained, "God of thunder, shocking the entire world! This name is perfect!"
"Makes sense…" Lu Zhou contemplated for a while before he nodded reluctantly. "Thor it is!"