Domestic material replacement was an enormous undertaking.
Ever since the sanctions incident, domestic companies had been deeply shaken and thoroughly alerted. Even if they did not say it aloud or publicly promote independent R&D, their actions were honest enough. One after another, they had quietly begun pushing for material replacement, especially for irreplaceable foreign materials, urgently searching for domestic alternatives.
If the performance was a little worse, then so be it. They would hurry up and find ways to fine-tune it.
However, material replacement was not something that could be completed overnight, because not every material had a domestic substitute.
The high-end ones, at least, could not be replaced within the next ten years. They could only solve the problem of "having it first" step by step before discussing anything else.
Yet FY-01's formidable performance immediately made Li Dingguo think that, in terms of optical materials, they had finally achieved 90% replaceability.
The remaining 10% only awaited large-scale verification.
Sometimes, whether a material was reliable depended not only on reliability testing, but also on the mass-production process. Mass production itself was a major test.
Thinking of this, Li Dingguo immediately thought of the best-selling K9 Series phones. Half a year after launch, they had already sold more than three million units, and their popularity had not waned. They were expected to exceed ten million units within a year, becoming another Oupai Company phone project with sales above ten million units.
The K9 used a single punch-hole screen, with the hole in the upper left corner. It had been given the pleasant name "Extreme Point Screen," and the optical material currently used was King Polymer Optical Film.
There was no way around it. Because the Extreme Point Screen had a hole punched into the display, a corresponding hole also had to be made in the internal materials to house the phone's camera, allowing light to enter the camera through that opening and enable photography. Therefore, it placed even higher demands on the performance of the optical material.
Besides the high brightness required by the K9 itself, performance after the hole was punched was the second most crucial factor.
Most optical materials could not even pass the high-brightness requirement.
Oupai had also considered a cost-reduction plan, using optical materials with lower brightness and compensating for it through other materials. But in actual testing, the performance simply could not meet the standard.
A single hole in the upper-left corner compromised the overall integrity. This meant that once the optical material was made into a finished product, its reliability was inevitably inferior to a product without a punched hole.
"Manager Liu, you're in charge of the K9 project, and Zhongwei made it. Get in touch with the people at Zhongwei and conduct verification for replacing King Material's material with FY-01."
Li Dingguo summoned Liu Shaofan, the product manager who had been responsible for developing the K9, and gave him the instruction.
Caught off guard by the order, Liu Shaofan was visibly stunned for a moment, but he quickly recovered and immediately replied, "All right, President Li. I'll arrange it right away."
As an Oupai product manager, Liu Shaofan had some reputation in the industry. Although he could not compare to those glamorous beauties, much less the big names among his peers, his ability was beyond doubt.
That very day, Liu Shaofan thoroughly prepared, arranged the verification plan, then contacted Feng Zhongfa, the project lead at Zhongwei, and told him about the matter.
"Understood, Director Liu. Zhongwei will respond as quickly as possible."
Feng Zhongfa was overjoyed and readily agreed.
Zhongwei had directly sent a high-level negotiating team to discuss cooperation with Zhou Feiyu, even dispatching their executive vice president, Chen Xi. At the time, Feng Zhongfa had felt that the company was placing too much importance on it.
But now, it seemed that the company's decision had indeed been farsighted and more decisive than he had been.
Feng Zhongfa immediately found Chen Xi and reported the matter. "President Chen, Oupai wants to introduce FY-01 material into the K9 model. It looks like our decision was absolutely correct."
Over the past few days, Chen Xi had been communicating with Hua Long, Qian Jia, Di Guang, Zhou Feiyu, and Nanjiang County about accelerating the launch of Fei Yang Optics. When he suddenly heard the news, he was not particularly surprised.
Chen Xi smiled faintly and said, "President Feng, you need to understand that whether a material is worth investing in depends not only on the value of the material itself, but also on industry trends and domestic and international affairs. Do you really think that, with the suppression growing more intense by the day, companies like Oupai that have not yet been targeted do not want to pursue domestic material replacement?"
At those words, Feng Zhongfa felt as if the clouds had parted and the fog had cleared. He sighed with emotion. "That's right. Everyone fears the day they might be targeted. The wisdom of our ancestors never goes out of date—don't put all your eggs in one basket."
With a shared goal and determination, coupled with FY-01's clear price advantage over King Material, both Oupai Company and Zhong Wei Technology were highly motivated at that moment.
The next day, a small order for ten thousand sheets was placed with the newly established Fei Yang Optics.
Since Fei Yang Optics was temporarily unable to produce them, the order was entrusted to Fei Yang New Material for production. Two separate profits flowed into Fei Yang New Material, which meant into Zhou Feiyu's pocket.
"Oupai Company has made its move."
Upon receiving the news, Zhou Feiyu was immediately quite surprised.
Although Oupai was one of the four major phone brands, compared with the other two, it had always kept an extremely low profile regarding R&D. It seemed as if Oupai had no investment in that area at all and made relatively few moves.
But judging from the facts, Oupai was still highly pragmatic and clear-headed.
Zhou Feiyu knew that the K9 Series was replacing its materials and had directly placed an order for ten thousand sheets for trial production. It seemed they intended to complete all verification at once and replace the material with his FY-01 as quickly as possible. Therefore, they needed to speed things up and raise production capacity as soon as they could.
Zhou Feiyu did not pay too much attention to this issue. Most of his energy was focused on studying and researching Intermediate Thin Film Technology, because someone else was even more anxious than he was.
With a total investment of forty million, high-tech materials, broad prospects, and the Hua Long Technology orders already received, Nanjiang County treated the official launch of Fei Yang Optics as its top priority.
Approvals were completed in a day, land was designated in a day, construction teams entered the site simultaneously, and utilities and network connections were rushed through at top speed.
"What? Oupai Company is preparing to place a major order?"
Xiao Yi, a county leader who had already made the launch of Fei Yang Optics his foremost task, still felt that their progress was not fast enough after hearing the information reported by Zhou Feiyu.
Oupai Company's orders were casually worth tens of millions. This would undoubtedly inject even stronger momentum into Nanjiang County's economic development.
Up to this point, Nanjiang County had never seen such major development in the materials sector.
Thinking of Tesla's production launch in Magic City, its gigafactory with an annual capacity of more than five hundred thousand electric vehicles had taken only a little over half a year from confirming intent to mass production. That was what real speed looked like.
After all, once intent was confirmed, they still had to go through all kinds of approval procedures, designate land, design the facility, and find contractors. Its complexity was not something a materials company could compare with; the difficulty was at least ten times greater.
Xiao Yi immediately set out, personally leading a group to the construction site to urge progress, and issued an order to the industrial park's administrative committee: formal production had to begin within one month.
Meanwhile, as Oupai Company made its move, Wang Yanfeng, the general manager of King Material Company's domestic office, soon received some unwelcome news.
"Director Wang, Zhong Wei Technology has canceled its delivery plan for five million sheets one month from now!"
The sales department manager knocked on his office door with a grave expression.
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