Are E-Cigarettes Safe? Lao Han's 10-Year Journey in Vape Chip Design

Are E-Cigarettes Safe? Recently, the 315 Gala once again highlighted e-cigarettes, revealing that the e-cigarette industry is not as simple as many think, as many have struggled in this industry for years. Since Xiao Han passed the civil service exam and settled into a stable life, he has become increasingly uneasy behind this stability.

"A person who wants to work in electronics ends up repeating Excel spreadsheets every day." This was the problem that troubled Xiao Han that year.

That autumn, Xiao Han finally made a decision, bidding farewell to family and colleagues, and taking a green train filled with instant noodle smell to Shenzhen alone. In this largest gathering place for engineers in the country, Xiao Han felt he could do something big.
Xiao Han found a job as a technical engineer in an e-cigarette factory, which was doing very well. The high return rate and safety issues with e-cigarettes were the biggest problems at that time, and surrounding factories were also trying to make technical improvements to solve this issue. Three months later, major clients would visit each factory to select products, and everyone was gearing up to secure this big order.

Xiao Han spent a month understanding the product's structure, principles, processes, and manufacturing stages. Noticing that most returned products had issues with the atomization device burning out, he decided to start analyzing the atomization device and power supply system.

With his rich experience in hardware system architecture, Xiao Han conducted various experiments on chips, circuits, output, and heating curves. Just before the major clients' visit, he reduced the defect rate from double digits to single digits, and the factory successfully secured the big order, earning Xiao Han substantial rewards.

Engineers from nearby factories began to visit Xiao Han, and he gained a bit of fame. At that time, there was a saying in the industry: "A small step for Xiao Han is a giant leap for e-cigarettes."
From then on, Xiao Han became Lao Han.

However, Lao Han was not happy about this because the technical improvements were not perfect; his goal was zero-defect safety and convenience. But business and dreams are two different matters. The boss believed that product competitiveness lay in comparison with competitors, not in self-perfection. Now, with strong customer demand, what was needed was to provide the best products on the market, not the perfect products.

Lao Han accepted his boss's view. In the face of foreign exchange profits, Lao Han's dream of technical improvement was drowned out. His fellow engineers, like Lao Han, were all immersed in the dream of quietly making money, and no one talked about zero defects anymore.

Transition to Developing Heated Tobacco E-Cigarettes

In 2014, new heated tobacco e-cigarettes represented by IQOS emerged, severely impacting the factory where Lao Han worked. Business plummeted, and the boss had spent the profits from previous years on real estate and financial products, neglecting technical improvements and new product development, making the factory's situation precarious.

At this time, some nearby factories extended an olive branch to Lao Han, and he joined Factory A to start developing heated tobacco products. The principle of this product is to use a micro-electronic heating device to heat the specially designed tobacco sticks to a degree sufficient to release flavor and tobacco taste.

Its working temperature is between 250-350 degrees, and the difficulty in product design lies in controlling the output power, output curve, and heating efficiency of the heating device. This returns to the issue of system coordination, as the quality of coordination directly affects the user's taste and experience.

As the popularity of heated tobacco products rose, chips were increasingly mentioned in the industry. Lao Han discovered that general-purpose chips indeed shortened the development cycle and relatively controlled costs in the early stages of new products.

However, during the market rise of the product, the advantages of general-purpose chips became like a double-edged sword, even hindering progress. The excess of functional quality and difficulty in controlling power consumption limited the development space for high integration and miniaturization. If there were dedicated chips, it would bring greater imaginative space for product innovation.

"If there were dedicated chips, it might have a disruptive impact on the industry!" Lao Han occasionally thought. In a rapidly developing market, timely product delivery is the top priority, so he quietly shelved the idea of dedicated chips and continued to focus on the important work of generating foreign exchange profits.
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E-Cigarette Factory Street Under the Spotlight

In 2018, the e-cigarette brand RUIKE made a dazzling debut in the Chinese market, bringing the first wave of shock with its astonishing growth speed. At the beginning of 2019, new brands like YOOZ and FLOW entered the market, directly pushing the e-cigarette industry into the hottest trend of early 2019, with the third-generation e-cigarette—flat cigarettes—being the brightest star in this trend.

A single stone stirred up a thousand waves; the e-cigarette factory street in Shenzhen, which had been quietly earning foreign exchange, suddenly found itself under the spotlight, revealing both the blue ocean and the hidden reefs... Describing the e-cigarette practitioners of this time as experiencing a duality of extremes is not an exaggeration.

The office buildings on e-cigarette factory street are home to numerous e-cigarette companies.

The rocky road to SMOK's IPO and the tremendous success of MCV in manufacturing have all had a significant impact on this street, breaking the original balance. Some people are planning to follow the trend and transform, while others are hesitating, fully aware of the dilemma of being surrounded by a city, afraid of being swallowed by the waves if they act rashly.

Lao Han has worked on this street for ten years, and his obsession with chip technology has influenced a group of tech enthusiasts on this street. Several partners who frequently interacted with Lao Han said, "Lao Han, lead us, and we will do whatever you say."

Lao Han fell into deep thought. He felt he should simplify his career: the idea of dedicated chips suddenly popped into his mind. Yes, use technology to change the world and return to his genetic origin!

Lao Han recalled when he first came to Shenzhen ten years ago, believing he could do something with technology... Over the years, he had been led by foreign exchange profits, lost in the market's waves, and strayed from his original intention. Lao Han reviewed the changes in products over the years; regardless of how the categories switched, they were all inseparable from chips and circuits, which was precisely his expertise.
Ten Years of Accumulation, One Day of Success

Without hesitation, Lao Han led a few brothers to get started. They conducted a comprehensive analysis from several dimensions, including product structure, functions, principles, pain points, and experiences, and collectively formulated a chip planning strategy that prioritized vertical development before horizontal expansion. Everyone felt this approach was good.

Some e-cigarette factories fell into difficulty due to overly singular products and a lack of emphasis on technological innovation, unable to rise from the warm bed of market dividends. When significant changes occurred in the market, their fragility became particularly evident, and everyone had experienced such losses to varying degrees.

Industry insiders know that developing safety chips for e-cigarettes is not any simpler than designing e-cigarettes. Learning from past experiences, under a high degree of consensus, the team's efficiency was surprisingly high. As Lao Han put it, "The difference in cognitive dimensions is the barrier to team efficiency."

From a grain of sand to a chip, it takes over 20 processes. Lao Han's ten-year journey in the e-cigarette industry, from the technical improvements of small e-cigarettes to the R&D of heated tobacco products and the nurturing of dedicated chips, has seen iterations and evolutions in product thinking, user experience, and technical accumulation. Lao Han and his team are continuously growing.

With industry know-how and the reputation accumulated over the years, their dedicated chips had strong interest from potential clients right from the start. Within six months of the chip's launch, it was already being applied in some e-cigarette products. Perhaps the e-cigarette you are currently using contains Lao Han's chip.

Now, during breaks, Lao Han also chats with his brothers about the past of e-cigarettes and his chip dream.

To make e-cigarettes safer and more convenient, Lao Han has always believed in achieving excellence in the design of dedicated chips.

Now, Lao Han and his partners have re-entered the industry as chip creators. Lao Han hopes that more engineers and solution providers can come together to build an ecological system for this dedicated market, allowing everyone to find their ecological niche and serve the entire industry with a collaborative professional philosophy.

Written by: Si Feng & Shy