"Mr. Li, the equipment is debugged!" an employee walked up and said.

Li Xuan nodded to Li Jian and Cai Jian: "Lao Li, then let's start, you and Cai Jian will come to practice in person, I wish you a success!"

In order to test the performance of this IC phone card, the program-controlled telephone system inside the Yàn Building was specially modified to simulate the local telephone system of the Hong Kong telephone company.

Li Jian walked to a specially customized card-type phone, and gently inserted the small card in his hand that had gathered himself and his old friends for nearly ten months into the card slot on the telephone.

Immediately there was an extra line of words on the display screen of the telephone, "Balance: 100.00", Li Jian smiled slightly, which means that the IC card is in good contact with the telephone and has entered the normal working state.

He grabbed the microphone and pressed the number "123456" prepared in advance. After two or three seconds, there was a "beep-beep!" sound from the microphone. At the same moment, another telephone next to it rang rapidly.

waited until the bell rang three times before Cai Jian picked up the phone unhurriedly. He glanced at Li Jian next to him, and the other party was also looking at him. The two looked at each other and smiled, but neither spoke.

After a moment of silence, Li Jian finally said, "Almost, right?"

"Hmm!" Cai Jian nodded.

So the two hung up the phone one after another. When Li Jian hung up the microphone, his eyes kept glued to the screen of the telephone. The call was often 2 minutes and 25 seconds, and the price program was pre-set in the program-controlled telephone exchange of the real yàn building. The call fee is 1 yuan per minute, and less than half a minute will be counted as half a minute. In other words, the call fee is 2.5 yuan.

On the screen of the telephone, the number after the balance column. It has been automatically corrected to 97.50. Li Jian was still a little worried, so he unplugged the phone card first. Then it was plugged back in again, and the balance was still 97.50.

"It's a success!" Li Jian said with a smile.

He, like most people who are engaged in technology, is introverted and not good at expression. So much so that the whole test process was very dull and boring in the eyes of others. It's just two people staring at two telephones, stupidly in a daze for a few minutes, which doesn't look like a heavy test item, the kind of excitement it should have.

Most of the people present were the R&D personnel who came to join in the excitement in the Dongfang Shi Yàn Building, but their expressions were not obtrusive in the eyes of everyone. This unpretentious attitude is the best attitude towards scientific research. Everyone gave thunderous applause at the first time, which is a respect for hard work.

Before today, Li Jian and Cai Jian had actually conducted countless experiments. There are successes and failures, and after carefully analyzing each failure and constantly correcting various mistakes, this IC phone card system has finally matured. That's right, in addition to IC calling cards, they also designed a special plug-in type telephone.

Today's public test is the result of Li Jian and Cai Jian's team reporting to the senior management of the Oriental Research Institute. It shows that the real money invested by the institute in them is rewarded.

Li Xuan played with the small rectangular card in his hand, this IC phone card was a contact IC card. The so-called contact IC card is that one side of the card is exposed to the IC chip, and the card needs to be inserted into the card slot when used. The chip can only be used when it comes into contact with the circuit of the card slot.

There is also a contactless IC card as opposed to a contact IC card. The card chip is completely encased in a plastic card, which is not visible from the outside. Contactless IC cards are also called RF cards. In addition to the IC chip, there is also an RF circuit in the card.

It is connected to the card reader by means of guò radio waves, and the reading and writing operations can be completed. Therefore, there is no need for a special card slot. Most of the bus cards in later generations are this kind of contactless IC card, and passengers only need to put the bus card close to the card reader after getting on the bus. The deduction can be completed with a "drop" sound, which is more convenient and faster than the contact IC card that needs to be inserted.

"The follow-up R&D application you submitted before has been approved, with a quota of 5 million Hong Kong dollars! Now this IC card can only achieve the simplest storage function! I hope you will further develop encrypted IC cards and contactless IC cards, so that the scope of application of our products can be broader. Li Xuan said to Li Jian and Cai Jian with full expectations.

"Mr. Li, it seems that we only applied for 3 million funds, how did we approve 5 million?" Cai Jian asked a little puzzled.

There were no other R&D personnel around him, and there was an urge to faint, this Cai Jian was too upright. Naturally, the more scientific research funds, the better, and shouldn't you make a lot of money at this time?

"This shows that the committee is optimistic about your project and hopes that you will not disappoint me and other committee members!" Li Xuan said with a smile.

Li Xuan is the chairman of an academic committee that is responsible for the review of all R&D projects. The Institute of Oriental Studies actively encourages internal technicians to carry out R&D and innovation, and as long as everyone's scientific research application project has something to say and has a certain value, it will receive financial support from the academic committee. Up to now, the Institute of Oriental Studies has set up a number of R&D centers in Hong Kong, Taipei, Silicon Valley, Cambridge, Tokyo and other places, and the total number of scientific researchers has exceeded 3,000.

In the whole of last year, the Academic Committee received more than 3,000 applications for various scientific research projects from internal and external partner institutions, of which about 1,000 were approved. The Oriental Institute has invested a total of $400 million in research funding.

The conversion rate of R&D investment is actually pitiful, and most of these projects are difficult to turn into actual profits. However, there are always some of these items that are like gold hidden in the mud and sand, which eventually burst into a dazzling light. Li Jian and Cai Jian's IC card project is a typical representative of this.

When they first submitted their project proposals, they only submitted a funding request of HK$500,000, which was eventually approved for HK$300,000. The Academic Council evaluates each project and grants research funding based on the project's potential. Generally speaking, projects with a budget of less than 1 million yuan can only be regarded as a topic that does not enter the stream. Projects with a funding of 1 million to 5 million yuan can only be regarded as ordinary topics. Projects with a funding of more than 5 million yuan are high-potential topics that receive the attention of the Academic Committee.

Topics that do not enter the stream account for more than half of all the projects applied, and most of these projects are decided by Professor Zhao Weiming, the executive vice chairman of the academic committee, and rarely appear on Li Xuan's desk. As the vice president of the Oriental Research Institute, Zhao Weiming has completely withdrawn from front-line scientific research and focused on project management and coordination.

Li Xuan rarely participates in the day-to-day management of the institute, and only those high-potential projects with an investment of more than 5 million Hong Kong dollars will attract some of his attention. So when Li Jian and Cai Jian's IC card project first opened, Li Xuan didn't know anything at all.

It wasn't until when their project submitted the mid-term outcome review report that Zhao Weiming put it in the list of projects that could be funded by Zhao Weiming and handed it over to Li Xuan for review, that Li Xuan noticed the project. Originally, Zhao Weiming was going to add an additional fund of 200,000 Hong Kong dollars, but Li Xuan changed it to 700,000 Hong Kong dollars with a stroke of a pen, bringing the total cost of the IC card project to 1 million Hong Kong dollars.

With only 1 million Hong Kong dollars, Li Jian and Cai Jian successfully came up with the first application product of IC card - IC phone card. And if the IC phone card can be successfully promoted, the Oriental Research Institute will reap profits of at least hundreds of millions of dollars in the next few decades. Taking the previous ERM architecture as an example, don't look at Li Xuan's R&D investment for this is as high as tens of millions of dollars. But in just two years, Oriental Research Institute has made more than $100 million in profits from the ERM processor business supplied to iKang.

"Hehe, Lao Li, are the two of us out of the way, and we can be the boss in the future!" Cai Jian said to Li Jian excitedly as soon as he returned to the office.

The 5 million research fund is definitely a hurdle in the Dongfang Shi Yàn Building, and those who have crossed this hurdle are all star researchers. And from today onwards, Cai Jian and Li Jian will obviously join the ranks of envy. In addition to being more concerned by the senior management of the institute, the 5 million project also has some privileges.

For example, the project leader is eligible to apply for external recruitment, and they can submit recruitment requirements to the personnel department according to their own scientific research needs. The HR department will release recruitment information according to the requirements of the project supervisor, and finally the project supervisor will conduct an interview, so it can be regarded as the boss who decides the fate of others.

Of course, it does not mean that these project teams with a fund of 5 million can recruit people without restrictions. Because at least until the end of the project, the salary expenses of the new recruits need to be deducted from the research funds of the project.

In fact, even if they don't recruit outsiders, it will be much easier for those project initiators with high funding to invite other researchers in the institute to join their team. The more funding, the easier it is to produce results, which can be said to be an iron law in the field of scientific research. Researchers who do not apply for a project, or whose project has little potential, will definitely be given priority to join a team that is more likely to produce results.

For projects like Li Jian and Cai Jian, who only approved a total of 300,000 funds at the beginning, they can only fight alone, and it is impossible to persuade others to help them. It wasn't until the project of the two was put into the list of additional funds and attracted Li Xuan's attention that the research institute assigned three intern graduate students to the two as assistants.

CUHK and the Institute of Oriental Studies have worked very closely together, and with the support of Li Xuan, the scale of the Department of Electronics at CUHK has been repeatedly expanded in recent years. Compared with when Li Xuan first enrolled, the number of undergraduate students has more than doubled, and the number of graduate students has increased several times.

The Institute of Oriental Studies (IA) has also entered into a partnership with CUHK on the two-way training of postgraduate students, and all master's and doctoral students in the Department of Electronics will participate in front-line research at the Institute in addition to receiving basic courses at the university. Since last year, the two-way training programme has been extended to third- and fourth-year undergraduate students in the Department of Electronics at CUHK. (To be continued......)