Brief Introduction to the design process of mobile phones

Brief Introduction to the design process of mobile phones

Average mobile phoneDesignThe company needs to have six basic departments: ID, MD, HW, SW, PM, sourcing, and QA. This actually shows the design process of the mobile phone.


1. Industrial Design


Including the appearance, material, feel, color matching of the mobile phone, the main interface implementation and color design.


For example, Motorola "Ming" is translucent, Nokia 7610 is arc-shaped, and Sony Ericsson's sunshine orange. These special feelings and experiences are all part of the design of the mobile phone industry. Whether a mobile phone can become the best-selling product is particularly important in the industrial design of mobile phones!


2. Structure Design of MD (mechanical design)


The selection of the mobile phone's front shell, Back Shell, camera lens location of the mobile phone, fixed mode, how the battery is connected, and the thickness of the mobile phone. If it is a slide phone, how to let the phone slide up, how to automatically play up, how SIM card insertion and removal arrangements, these are the scope of the mobile phone structure design. Complex components require MD staff to be very familiar with materials and processes.

Motorola V3 has set off a boom in the mobile phone market with a thickness of 9mm. The V3 mobile phone is sold on an ultra-thin basis because the material selection of its mobile phone shell is critical, therefore, the V3 shell is made of aviation-Grade Aluminum Alloy with advanced technology. It can be said that the selection of special shell materials has made V3 a success.


In addition, some users may feel the shaking of the front and right sides of the phone shell when using some ultra-thin Slide Mobile Phones. This is a problem with the mobile phone structure design, because the phone housing is too thin, the speaker Vibration During the call can easily cause a resonance in the phone body.


3. Hardware Design of HW (hardware)


Hardware mainly designs circuits and antennas, while HW maintains regular communication with MD.


For example, the MD requires thin, so the circuit must be thin. At the same time, HW also requires that the md be placed in a relatively large area, and the distance from the battery should be far enough. HW also requires that the Id be placed near the antenna without metal accessories. We can imagine that the manufacturing cost of a mobile phone with a built-in antenna is 20-25% more expensive than that of a mobile phone with an external antenna. The main factor is the design of the antenna, material requirements and circuit design and manufacturing costs are both relatively high.

Generally, the structure designer (MD) and the Industrial Designer (ID) will argue that IDs are painters and draw things that cannot be done by everyone. The ID will be stupid, mobile phones do not sell well because they are not designed. Therefore, before a new mobile phone is designed, each department will review the design idea of the ID Department. A good ID must be an idea that can be realized, and the customer experience should be good. In those days, Motorola v70's ID was a very good example of creative implementation, and the market response was also good in the future, while SIEMENS xelibri's creative design was also very good and can also be achieved, however, it is a pity that the end user does not feel good at using it. Therefore, a really good idea should not only be nice-looking, practical, but also easy to use.

In addition, HW will quarrel with the ID. The ID prefers metal decoration, but the metal will affect the antenna design and easily generate static electricity, so HW will be very annoyed, ID/MD will develop new materials to meet the requirements of ID. Nokia 8800 is a good example, with both metallic sensing and antenna reception capabilities unaffected.


4. SW (software) Software Design


Relatively speaking, SW is easier for everyone to understand. Thanks to the popularity of computers, we have reached the maximum degree of contact with various software and mobile phone operation interface modes, we often see the implementation of the nine official operating menus on mobile phones, all of which are in the scope of SW design.

SW should fully consider the operability of the interface, whether it is user-friendly, and whether it is beautiful. SW'sTestSW testing is not only looking for bugs, consistency testing, and compatibility testing are all very important projects. In the current "content-oriented" Information Age, software is the final pillar behind the scenes of mobile phones. Hardware drives are implemented by software. Conflicts between software and hardware engineers are believed to be less than those of other departments, therefore, PM (project management) is required)Project Management.


5. PM (project management) Project Management


PM of a large-scale company is very detailed, for example, TPM (usually ly of project management), that is, PM of specialized management technology. Ordinary pm only manages the coordination of project progress, the PM Department usually exists in companies that design, produce, and sell their own mobile phones and am (account manager) jobs. I am afraid everyone is familiar with it. As a customer manager, the requirement for the company's internal representative customers is put forward, and the external representative of the company's overall image, play an indispensable bridge between the two.


6. Sourcing Resource Development Department


Employees of the resource development department need to constantly explore new resources, such as new materials, new mobile phone components, and testing equipment. When mobile phones start trial production, they need to ensure that all production materials required on the production line are complete.


The Mobile Phone Trial is carried out in small batches, which not only tests the maturity of software/hardware, but also tests the production process and production technology. When some mobile phones reach this stage, however, if you fail to pass this test, the final result is a failure. As a result, this new design of mobile phone will not appear in the market, but the investment in development funds and manpower is a huge loss.


7. QA (Quality Assurance) Quality Supervision


The QA Department undertakes the work of ensuring the quality of the entire process, urges the development process to comply with the predefined process, ensures the project is productive, and there are many new design mobile phones, I gave up because of some factors that cannot be produced.

Making a cell phone is not as simple as doing experiments in the lab. Once it is produced, it will be tens of thousands. It is not easy to ensure the quality of each product. The sample of producing a mobile phone and the production of 0.1 million mobile phones are totally two things.

Example:ChinaAll the dishes in the restaurant are samples. McDonald's products are made, so McDonald's can do a lot of work. So far, Chinese restaurants have not yet achieved a similar scale as McDonald's, therefore, mobile phone design companies will establish many processes to prevent the development of mobile phones from being put into production.


In addition, the success of a mobile phone is still a result of close contact with the masses of mobile phone users, and can be successful only after user feedback and rapid improvement.


2. Little-known mobile phone testing projects


1. Stress Testing


Use the automated testing software to call 1000 phone numbers consecutively and check whether the phone is faulty. If something goes wrong, the related software needs to be rewritten. So sometimes there may be different software versions on the mobile phone. In fact, it tells everyone a secret that the more versions the mobile phone has, which proves that before the mobile phone is released for sale, it is available without adequate testing.


2. Wrestling Test


The crash resistance test is conducted by a dedicated pprt reliability lab. The 300 m micro-drop test is performed times/plane (the mobile phone has six sides ). In the 2 m drop test, each face needs to be done once, and the simulation person also throws the mobile phone to the desktop, and the battery used by the mobile phone also needs to go through a minimum of 4 m height, A single impact on the ground drops 100 times without cracking.


3. high/low temperature testing


Let the mobile phone in different temperature environments to test the adaptability of the mobile phone, the low temperature is generally at minus 20 degrees Celsius, the high temperature is about 80 degrees Celsius.


4. High humidity test


A specialized cabinet is used for dripping tests to simulate people sweating (water infiltration into a certain proportion of salt). It takes about 30 hours.


5. baige test (also known as jietofu test)


Use a H4-hard pencil to draw a 100 lattice on the cell phone shell to see if the cell phone shell will fall off the paint. Some mobile phones require stricter requirements, some "Famous Brand" cosmetics will be applied to the cell phone shell to see if there is any possibility of odor or paint loss caused by different chemical components.


6. Flip Reliability Test


The phone is covered for 0.1 million times, and the loss of the phone housing is checked by a flip simulation machine. It can set the strength and angle of the flip.


7. Torque Testing


The caster clamp the two ends, one to the left and one to the right. The torque test mainly tests the strength of the mobile phone housing and the inside of the mobile phone.


8. static testing


In the northern region, the weather is relatively dry, and the hand-touched metal is prone to static electricity, which will lead to the breakdown of the mobile phone circuit. Some poorly designed mobile phones are suddenly damaged. The tool used for this test is a copper plate called an electrostatic gun. The electrostatic gun is adjusted to a high voltage and low current of 10-15 kV, discharge the battery test on all metal contact points of the mobile phone at around MS-2 s and conduct the test in a room with humidity control) there will also be the same test, qualified to be released.


9. Button Life Test


With the help of the machine, the set power is used to hit the keyboard 0.1 million times. If the user presses 100 times each time, it is 1000 days, which is about three years after the user uses the mobile phone.


10. Dust Test


Put the cell phone in a specific box, and the small sand was promoted by the hair dryer. after about three hours, open the mobile phone and check whether there is sand inside the mobile phone. If so, the phone's closed design is not good enough, and its structural design needs to be adjusted again.


In addition, the mobile phone test also includes more and more bizarre test items, such as placing the mobile phone on the tinplate and making a phone call for testing. As the magnetic field changes at this time, everything will happen, for example, the SIM card cannot be found.


Wire is used to dial in the connector at the bottom of the mobile phone. It is mainly to take into account whether the mobile phone will be short-circuited when the key is in the handbag.


We also intentionally reverse the charger/battery test to see if the cell phone's protection circuit design works properly. We can call the fluorescent lamp to test the human body's ability to absorb electromagnetic waves, and call tests that are close to the pacemaker,


All the tests mentioned above are indispensable.