preface
This is the latest iPhone 12 mobile phone released by Apple in 2020. We will not go into details about its specific parameters one by one.
Little Whale, I noticed that it supports dual SIM card dual standby.
huh? Dual SIM? The familiar term
reminds me of the copycat phones sold on the street in Huaqiang North, Shenzhen more than ten years ago.
friends, do you want your mobile phone to be equipped with 7 systems and four SIM cards at the same time?
It seems that Apple is weak now. Two SIM cards are nothing, four SIM cards are the way to go!
The birth of copycat phones back then was actually inseparable from one company, which was MediaTek .
So how did MediaTek develop and what is its current situation? In this issue of
, Little Whale is here to talk to you about this.
MediaTek History
MediaTek's full name is China Taiwan MediaTek Technology Co., Ltd. Due to the homophony, it is called "Fa Ge" by some technology enthusiasts. The reason why
Fa Ge can become Fa Ge is because it is one of the world's famous IC design manufacturers.
its development model is similar to TSMC , both of which only focus on a sub-field of the semiconductor industry chain.
TSMC focuses on wafer manufacturing, while MediaTek focuses on chip design.
In the current global mobile phone design market, except for the most high-end brands, such as Apple, Samsung and Huawei , they spend their own money to design their own chips.
Most other mobile phone brands, such as Oppo, Vivo, , Xiaomi, , etc., do not have so many resources to design their own chips, which has led to the rise of pure chip design companies like MediaTek.
When talking about the development history of Fa Ge, we have to start talking about it in 1997, and this is inextricably related to the wafer foundry Lianhua Electronics .
Some people may not know UMC, but it can actually be regarded as the older brother of TSMC.
Regarding the love and hatred between these two brothers, I will leave a pit here. When the number of fans exceeds 100,000, I will start another series for everyone to tell the story of love and hatred between major semiconductor companies.
So if you want to hear it, remember to follow me!
Ok, let’s get down to business!
In order to better specialize in its own wafer foundry, UMC had to split its multimedia chip design group, and MediaTek was born.
Until 1999, MediaTek was only a manufacturer that developed optical disc storage technology and DVD chips. The core technology was to integrate two chips with video and digital decoding functions into one chip and provide corresponding software solutions.
was very popular among major DVD manufacturers at the time.
So by 2001, MediaTek, which had been in business for about four years, already occupied 60% of the DVD chip market. It can be said that MediaTek had a good start.
Copycat King MediaTek
It was 2003, and domestic mobile phones had not yet emerged. MediaTek, as the only domestic manufacturer to obtain mobile processor chip manufacturing technology at that time, launched a one-stop TurnKey Solution turnkey mobile phone solution, which became an important The first choice for manufacturers with few "copycat phones".
was later known as the MTK brand to women and children.
Speaking of this, do you recall the scene back then?
has super dual speakers plus 8 marquees, four cards and four standbys, and 7 systems in one machine, all kinds of cool things. Phelps' special knock-off waterproof machine, the knock-off phone is awesome!
So what exactly is this turnkey solution? Let me briefly talk about
:
means that after mobile phone manufacturers purchase this solution, they only need to assemble the screen, camera, shell, keyboard and other parts to launch the finished mobile phone. A vivid example of
is:
is similar to what we call "move-in" when renting a house. And it will also have a detailed guide on the bedside table, telling you where to put each device and how to use it.
means that when it hands the key to the customer, the customer must not only be able to use your product, but also be able to use your product.
Therefore, this model greatly reduced the production cycle and cost of copycat machines, and quickly opened up the Chinese market, which has since created the prosperity of Shenzhen Huaqiangbei.
At its peak, MediaTek captured 90% of the mainland mobile phone chip market, and thus won the title of "Father of Copycat Phones".
MediaTek transformed into
But there were unexpected events. By 2011, iOS and Android gradually became the two mainstream smartphone markets, and copycat phones and feature phones gradually withdrew from the market.
So Fa Ge had a keen eye and spotted the trend of smart phones, and immediately started making mobile phone chips for smart phones.
The quad-core MT6589 chip released by Fa Ge in 2012 set many firsts in the industry in terms of communication baseband, graphics processing, and energy consumption ratio. The user experience was also great, leading the popularization of quad-core chips costing 1,000 yuan.
After low-end smartphones established a firm foothold, Fa Ge began to consider moving into the mid-range market.
released the world's first eight-core processor MT6592, which can be said to have all eight doors open. Although competitor Samsung also has eight-core processors, the eight processors cannot work at the same time, which is actually equivalent to "quad-core".
is completely incompetent compared to Fa Ge!
So Fa Ge set off a storm of popularization of eight-core processors, and the representative model is the Redmi NOTE.
Brother Fa took a look, yo! We already have the mid- to low-end market, so why don’t we go to the high-end market?
So in 2015, Fa Ge launched the Helio X series to challenge the high-end market.
Although Helio X10 is positioned as high-end, its basic configuration is not strong, and there are problems such as Wifi interruption during use. At the same time, because Fa Ge has set up a core-locking scheduling mechanism, X10 has "one core is difficult, "Seven Cores Watch" situation. As a result,
was defeated in the high-end market. It can be said that the situation was a bit embarrassing!
In November 2019, MediaTek launched the 5G Dimensity 1000, and once again wanted to take a share of the high-end market. Why is
defined as 1000?
Because Huawei's new flagship product at that time was HiSilicon Kirin 990, MediaTek named it after 1000, which means you taste it, you taste it carefully... and you taste it again.
Fa Ge is going to make a big move this time?
But soon its rival Qualcomm immediately hit back hard and launched mid-to-high-end 5G chips:
High-end series include: Snapdragon 865
Mid-range series include: Snapdragon 765, Snapdragon 765G
and Xiaomi was invited to the press conference , Oppo and other upstream brands are helping out, and they also emphasize that the chips designed by Qualcomm are more powerful and better.
On the other hand, MediaTek does not want to lower its price, so it stuck the price of Dimensity 1000 at 60-70 US dollars. In contrast, Qualcomm lowered the price of the 765 by 30% due to competitive pressure, to $40.
and its own technical problems were not very good, which also caused some mobile phone manufacturers to abandon Dimensity and switch to Qualcomm, so Fa Ge lost again in the high-end market.
And this year, that is, 2020, Fa Ge has successively launched a variety of 5G chips, including the Dimensity 800 series, which is the main chip for mid-to-high-end 5G mobile phones .
Up to now, many domestic manufacturers such as OV Huami and other mid-range 5G mobile phones have chosen MediaTek.
For example, OPPO's A series, Huawei's Enjoy series, Honor's Play and Youth series use MediaTek's Dimensity chips in the main series. It can be said that Fa Ge has been entrusted with an important task.
Insights
In summary:
In today’s global smartphone market, Qualcomm has basically monopolized most of the chip market in recent years. In the high-end market, it is the leader with its Snapdragon 8 series processors. .
Now, the rise of MediaTek has already leveraged Qualcomm’s hegemony.
should know that every technological revolution means a new round of reshuffle in the industry. Although MediaTek has failed to open up a large market in high-end models, it still has a place in the mid- to low-end mobile phone market.
Nowadays, major mobile phone brands are beginning to favor MediaTek. On the one hand, it can get rid of Qualcomm's long-standing "Qualcomm tax", and on the other hand, it can promote the development of domestic chip technology, and the cost will also be greatly reduced.
Moreover, in the field of 5G chips, Fa Ge has gradually formed a "three-legged confrontation" with Qualcomm and Huawei HiSilicon Kirin. After
and 5G redefine life in the future, Fa Ge may not usher in the next chapter of glory. Let us look forward to
!
