What does modular mobile phone mean?

Modular mobile phone Modular mobile phone is a smart phone that allows users to change their own accessories. Just like in the PC era, users choose their own accessories such as mobile phone processor, camera, memory, communication module and wireless module to form a smart phone that can meet their own requirements from appearance to performance.

Take Google ProjectAra mobile phone as an example. Its core is the mobile phone frame, which is divided into mini (45× 1 18×9.7mm), standard (68× 14 1×9.7mm) and flat (9 1× 65438+). The price is 50 USD (about 3 10 yuan RMB). Users can add other accessories to Google's official store or third-party accessories that meet ProjectAra standards, and then they can complete it according to the official plan.

According to Google's idea, accessories can be deleted under ProjectAra. If you don't like taking pictures and rely more on battery life, don't install a camera, install an extra battery. Users don't even need to consider the compatibility between accessories. Google has taken care of it for you.

The development of modular mobile phones The concept of modular mobile phones has a long history. In 2004, Xie Wei of Tsinghua University Institute of Economics and Management published the article Modularization and the Rise of China Mobile Phone Industry.

He mainly answered two questions: first, what is modularity? Secondly, why modularity is very important to the development of mobile phone industry in China.

He believes that downstream integration capability is one of the keys to the rise of China's mobile phone industry.

Around 2004, a domestic first-line equipment manufacturer took action, but failed.

In 2008, an Israeli company acquired Modu mobile phone.

Modu is a very small mobile phone (as small as Guinness World Records). It not only has a complete mobile phone function, but also can be inserted into other shells to become a new mobile phone.

For example, plug it directly into the car to avoid holding the receiver, plug it into a PSP-like game machine to play online, plug in GPS, plug in digital photo frames, plug in TabletPC and so on.

Actually, it's similar to Project Projectara.

At the beginning of 20 12, it was reported that CamilleIsrael, a designer, developed a magical modular concept mobile phone Mobikoma.

Mobikoma consists of many gadgets of the same size and small square modules that can be replaced with each other.

Each module has an independent power supply and computer processor, which can run independently.

Each module is equipped with SIM card slot and flash drive, Bluetooth and Wi-Fi.

Another set of modules can be connected to the camera.

You can splice modules according to the function you want to realize.

From June 2065438 to June 2003, FrancoisRybarczyk, a designer of Sony Company, designed a modular mobile phone named XTRUD, which can be disassembled by users and customized or upgraded with internal components.

XTRUD engineering testing machine has perfectly proved that this design is extremely feasible.

In 20 13, Motorola and 3DSystems announced the establishment of a cooperative relationship to jointly produce customized modular smartphones and systems.

The official statement of the motorcycle to ProjectAra is that its design includes so-called endo and modules.

Endoskeleton is a frame structure to which all modules are attached.

The module can be anything, including a new application processor, a new screen or keyboard, a second battery, a pulse oximeter or any other unexpected thing.

At the 20 13 China International Information and Communication Exhibition, ZTE also showed a modular concept mobile phone Eco-Mobius.

Ecological Mobius is divided into core module, display module, battery module and photography module.

Different modules can be freely collocated according to different performance and standards. For example, battery modules can be connected in series to form a larger battery pack.

In addition, large screen equipment and even flat panels can be carried out by replacing larger templates.

This idea also won the German Red Dot Design Award.

2013,65438 On February 9th, Xiaomi Leijun posted a mobile phone picture called "Rubik's Cube" on Weibo, but it was later deleted.

This implies that Xiaomi's intention to develop modular mobile phones is very obvious.

This Weibo has aroused widespread media attention, and turned the modular mobile phone that was just a little cold into a hot spot.

20 15 1 month, Google officially launched a commercial model Spiral2.

Although the configuration of Spiral2 is lower than many flagship models, it is of great significance (commercially available).

According to the information given by Google, the machine is equipped with a 720p screen, and the processors are available in two versions: NVIDIATegraK 1 and MarvellPXA 1928.

In addition, the aircraft also has a 5 megapixel rear camera and supports 3G network, which will be the first to be sold in Puerto Rico.

For this phone, Google said that Spiral2 is composed of 1 1 modules, and they will launch 20-30 modules by the end of the year.

ProjectAra mobile phone will be delivered to the developer as soon as 20 15 1 1. More importantly, Google will return to the China market with this project.

The processor chip suppliers of modular mobile phones are mainly Qualcomm, Maywell, Ruixin Microelectronics and NVIDIA. The processors in Qualcomm mainly include Snapdragon 8 10, Snapdragon 805 and Snapdragon 6 15. Maiwell and NVIDIA are PXA 1928 and Tekrak 1 respectively. Ruixin's processor model has not been announced yet. The memory module has 3GB and 4GB, the memory is divided into 16GB, 32GB and 64GB, and the camera is divided into16 million pixels and 20.7 million pixels.

Although Google did not give the price of these accessories, techinsighs' disassembly cost estimation can be referenced.

Take Samsung GalaxyNote4 as an example. When the 5.7-inch QHD screen, Snapdragon 805 processor and front and rear cameras are 3.7 million pixels and160,000 pixels respectively, the RAM and ROM are 3GB and 32GB respectively, and the battery capacity is 3,000 mAh, the estimated cost of these configurations is about 260.50 USD, which is about RMB 1.6 17 yuan. If you assemble a flagship ProjectAra mobile phone with a configuration equivalent to Note4, you need at least 16 17 yuan (frame cost) = 1927 yuan, regardless of the customization cost of module accessories.

From this point of view, ProjectAra mobile phone can be the flagship mobile phone within 2000 yuan, which is still ideal. If you don't need some configuration, such as a camera, the phone will be cheaper.

Development Significance Modular mobile phones For most mobile phone users, the hardware configuration can be customized and replaced at any time, which is one of the initial ideas of modularization.

Some users sent messages such as "This is my ideal mobile phone", so the modular mobile phone is of the greatest significance to these users, and everyone understands it.

According to the concept of Motorola Phonebloks, users can build professional modular mobile phones according to their own needs, that is, for example, those who like to take pictures can install a top camera, and those who like long battery life can choose a larger battery, while other modules will be degraded or simply removed accordingly.

As for the replaceable design, some people will say that mobile phones are updated so quickly that they will be replaced in a year or less at any time, and mobile phones are easy to sell second-hand. Why change the module? ZTE's design also includes the concept of environmental protection, replacing parts instead of discarding the whole mobile phone, and decompressing the earth from the aspects of resource waste and environmental pollution.

Of course, this statement may not be deeply felt by users.

In fact, another explanation can be to maximize the value of the module.

Now that you want a camera phone, you may soon want a HiFi phone, so you can buy more modules to replace or share with other users.

In addition, if the module is independent, it will avoid the problem that the mobile phone maintenance is replaced or charged a high price.

Market prospect The modular mobile phone market has a good prospect.

With the frequent introduction of various smart phones and the rapid improvement of processing performance, mobile phones have increasingly become a multi-task and multi-service processing platform with strong processing capabilities.

Judging from the function settings of mobile phones, their basic functions are: 1, voice communication; 2. Interactive text communication.

The basic extended functions are: 1, network data communication; 2. Multimedia interactive communication.

The extended functions are: 1, local application of mobile phone; 2. Communication applications based on basic functions.

With the improvement of processing power, its application scope is also expanding, and the processing power of mobile phones is gradually in line with the development trend of computer industry, and there are many trends such as high processing power and high display power.

The coverage trend between mobile phones and netbooks, notebooks and handheld game devices is very obvious.

However, due to the portability, mobile phones can't replace the above devices in many aspects, but if the processing capacity is only improved for the sake of improving the display capacity, it seems that the support is insufficient.

In the business field, there are many peripheral systems based on mobile phone system, such as various Bluetooth devices, micro-printing devices, scanning receiving devices and so on.

However, in the field of civil individuals, this kind of application is not much.

Judging from the development law of computer industry and many industries, it is mostly a matter of time before professional equipment is transformed into civilian equipment.

Generally speaking, the core competence has been fully retained and improved, and the peripheral business has been transferred to the market, which can obtain higher profit rate and form a broader industry consolidation in the market.

The mobile phone industry may be the same. Mobile phone manufacturers focus on the development of core platforms such as data processing capabilities and graphics processing capabilities, and fully open the software and hardware interfaces. Users can define their own product software and hardware combinations according to their own needs to obtain the required products.

In view of the fact that the mobile phone development platform is basically in a standardized state, modular mobile phones or modular mobile communication processing terminals will be a good choice to reduce social costs, improve customer satisfaction, enhance the aggregation ability of industrial chain and enhance corporate profits.

There is something wrong with the hardware. The signal transmission speed between modular mobile phones and modern devices is extremely fast. The simplest and cheapest way to adapt to this situation is to bring the components closer together.

For example, modern mobile phones, wireless receiving components, RAM and CPU are all on the same chip.

Basically, put the CPU and wireless receiver on the same silicon chip, and then add a RAM on it.

Communication problems Integrated circuits in mobile phones are basically fixed on specific processor pins and do not communicate on a single bus.

This will change the size and position of the module.

If you want to realize modular mobile phones, it is still very expensive to realize high-speed signal communication between modules.

CPU, RAM, ROM, these high-speed components all need expensive slots.

Strictly speaking, the speed of ROM components does not need an expensive slot, but it will still cost users an extra $ 4-20.

Interoperability Even if you can really make modular mobile phones, there is a lack of standardization in this field.

Some experimenters spent several days connecting the display peripheral components on the processor with the screen.

Just to solve this problem, it took thousands of pages of documents, an application engineer and an oscilloscope with 15000 dollars.

It takes a lot of energy and money to debug the compatibility between various module components.

The concept of modular mobile phone is cool, but it can't be realized by electronic signals. Optical interconnection may be feasible, but this technology is still too early.

The optical interconnection on the chip is still under study, and a huge amount of money has been invested in it.

Intel has demonstrated impressive optical technology and will be available in five years.

Finally, we will be able to optically interconnect integrated circuits to achieve ultra-high-speed communication, and then modular mobile phones will be more feasible.

It is really cheap to simply equip a very ordinary ProjectAra mobile phone, but consumers who really buy ProjectAra should not do so because its appeal is personalized.

The original intention of modular mobile phone is to create personalization, and personalization means that you need a lot of accessories to replace it. Gopro users should have a deep understanding of this, and accessories are simply not enough.

For example, if you buy a Gopro host, you may consider stabilizers, fixed brackets, back-clip batteries, customized ptz, and so on. Similarly, when you buy a ProjectAra mobile phone, due to the diversification of the ways in which the framework itself supports hardware collocation, the accessories of various configurations will inevitably increase accordingly, such as the standard 5.7-inch QHD screen, but in some cases, battery life needs to be considered. It may be equipped with a 5.7-inch 1080p screen, or an electronic ink screen, or a projection or game controller module of a mobile phone. The cost of this spare personalized accessory will continue to increase.

Of course, if the sub-factory products can pass Google certification, the cost may still be greatly reduced, but Google has to challenge the whole industry, and make some customized parts while building some standard chips. The key is that customization outside the standard process is inevitable.

After-sales problems ProjectAra modular mobile phone is connected by electric permanent magnet (electric permanent magnet is a magnet that can be controlled by electricity, which only needs electricity when magnetizing or demagnetizing, and then can maintain the magnetic force without electricity), which supports hot plug, and there is no problem under normal use, but if it is impacted by strong external force, it is likely to be damaged. Some users ridiculed "How long does it take to pick it up when it falls to the ground?" "Sister, don't step on me."

Although it is just a joke, the unstable connection of permanent magnets does exist objectively, which may have an unpredictable impact on the life of module accessories and lead to after-sales problems.

For the general integrated mobile phone, it is relatively simple to directly find the corresponding brand after the phone has problems. However, considering the highly customized characteristics of modular mobile phones, there is the possibility of brand independence between different modules. At this time, if there is something wrong with the accessories, apart from the intuitive problem of broken screen, it is difficult for ordinary consumers to determine which part of the accessories has problems. You may not know what went wrong and which module parts supplier to look for after sale.