{"id":7855,"date":"2016-04-18T13:19:45","date_gmt":"2016-04-18T05:19:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vent.sunon.com\/?p=7855"},"modified":"2026-09-10T13:19:45","modified_gmt":"2026-09-10T05:19:45","slug":"continuous-innovation-the-best-guarantee-for-winning-the-market","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vent.sunon.com\/en\/continuous-innovation-the-best-guarantee-for-winning-the-market\/","title":{"rendered":"Continuous Innovation: The Best Guarantee for Winning the Market"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

“If a phone only handled voice calls, things would be simple<\/span>. But today’s smartphones connect to the internet, copy and sync data, and even project images<\/span>. Even the human brain would overheat trying to process so many tasks at once, let alone a smartphone\u2019s CPU,” pointed out Hung Yin-shu, Chairman of SUNON\u5efa\u6e96\u96fb\u6a5f<\/span>. Capitalizing on SUNON\u2019s core expertise in micromotor technology, the company developed a protective smartphone case equipped with a built-in cooling fan module<\/span>. This breakthrough breathed new life into SUNON’s product portfolio and paved the way into brand-new commercial territory<\/span>.<\/span><\/p>\n

Founded more than 35 years ago, SUNON\u5efa\u6e96\u96fb\u6a5f grew alongside Taiwan\u2019s booming laptop industry<\/span>. Its clientele spans major notebook ODMs such as Quanta and Compal<\/span>. Nearly one out of every three laptops worldwide has been equipped with a SUNON cooling fan, establishing the company as the global market-share leader<\/span>. “Without SUNON manufacturing ultra-thin and lightweight cooling fans, Taiwan’s laptop industry could never have grown this fast,” Hung said with well-founded confidence<\/span>.<\/span><\/p>\n

However, the rapid emergence of smartphones in recent years has driven a major paradigm shift across the tech industry<\/span>. SUNON needed to identify new opportunities in emerging sectors to remain at the forefront of technology trends<\/span>. In 2014, supported by the Conventional Industry Technology Development (CITD) program, SUNON developed the “Smart Thermal Smartphone Case” to prevent overheating while maximizing performance and user safety<\/span>.<\/span><\/p>\n

Taking the First Step into System Integration<\/h3>\n

SUNON’s research revealed that starting from the second half of 2013, the surface temperature of some flagship smartphone models could soar to around 50\u00b0C<\/span>. Testing with SUNON’s thermal case demonstrated a 10\u00b0C reduction in surface temperature, bringing the perceived temperature down to 40\u00b0C<\/span>. Furthermore, SUNON established the “SUNON Reference Design (SRD)” framework, collaborating with clients to rapidly integrate smart thermal cases and extend the underlying technology and innovative applications into other product categories<\/span>.<\/span><\/p>\n

From a market perspective, Gartner estimated global smartphone sales at approximately 1.2 billion units in 2014, signaling substantial potential for smart cooling cases<\/span>. Even assuming a single model sells 40 million units and high-end thermal cases capture just 0.5% of that volume, the resulting revenue could reach NT$300 million to NT$<\/span>400 million<\/span>.<\/span><\/p>\n

For an R&D-focused company like SUNON\u5efa\u6e96\u96fb\u6a5f, continuous technical breakthroughs are essential<\/span>. “SUNON’s mass-produced millimeter-scale micro fans had a thickness of 3 mm<\/span>. However, to fit inside a phone case, the fan had to be even more compact<\/span>. We challenged ourselves and engineered an ultra-thin millimeter micro fan of just 2 mm,” explained Li Chen-hsueh, Director of the Strategic Development Division at SUNON’s R&D Center<\/span>. Beyond the fan blade assembly, the motor had to be thinner and lighter than ever, pushing SUNON to new engineering heights through this project<\/span>.<\/span><\/p>\n

In system integration, the project helped SUNON uncover challenges it had never addressed before<\/span>. “For example, the power converter must not cause reverse charging during power delivery, and it had to be extremely slim<\/span>. These were issues we never encountered before entering system integration,” said Li<\/span>. To enable fan speed control, SUNON also invested in software development resources to write embedded code tailored to consumer needs<\/span>.<\/span><\/p>\n

Facing Consumers: Incorporating Industrial Aesthetics into Design<\/h3>\n

While external observers might see this merely as a phone case with a built-in cooling fan, for SUNON\u5efa\u6e96\u96fb\u6a5f it marked a pivotal step in business model transformation<\/span>. Li pointed out that SUNON traditionally served system integrators, designing strictly according to OEM specifications<\/span>. Under this project, however, SUNON took full ownership of the end-to-end system design and integration<\/span>.<\/span><\/p>\n

Furthermore, SUNON historically operated primarily as a B2B supplier with little direct consumer exposure<\/span>. This protective case was created directly for end-users, marking a major transition from a B2B framework to a B2C model<\/span>.<\/span><\/p>\n

Li noted that the Chinese name “\u5efa\u6e96” (Chien-Tsun) carries the meaning of “establishing standards” (\u5efa\u7acb\u6a19\u6e96)<\/span>. “We aspire to provide products our competitors cannot offer<\/span>. While thermal phone cases are forward-looking and innovative, this initiative pushed SUNON from working behind the scenes for commercial clients to stepping forward to directly engage end consumers<\/span>.”<\/span><\/p>\n

To win over retail consumers, SUNON bolstered its industrial design capabilities, treating aesthetics as a core development requirement rather than focusing solely on engineering performance<\/span>. “We applied this design-centric approach to other product lines as well, such as our LED ventilation fan launched in Taiwan this year<\/span>. That product went on to win Germany’s iF Design Award\u2014the very first design accolade in SUNON’s history!” Li said<\/span>.<\/span><\/p>\n

“To me, the greatest value of participating in the CITD project was the encouragement and validation it gave us,” Hung Yin-shu concluded<\/span>. Through the development and design of this innovation, SUNON overcame significant technical hurdles and earned an international design award once thought out of reach<\/span>. “It gave us the confidence to keep moving forward<\/span>. That is the real value this program brought to our company<\/span>.”<\/span><\/p>\n

Source: Business Today (\u4eca\u5468\u520a)<\/i><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u76f8\u95dc\u5831\u5c0e<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":28,"featured_media":7859,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[344],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7855","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-in-depth-reports"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vent.sunon.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7855","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vent.sunon.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vent.sunon.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vent.sunon.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/28"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vent.sunon.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7855"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/vent.sunon.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7855\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11163,"href":"https:\/\/vent.sunon.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7855\/revisions\/11163"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vent.sunon.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7859"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vent.sunon.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7855"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vent.sunon.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7855"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vent.sunon.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7855"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}