Huawei 's success in Kirin chip is obvious to all. Although he is now in the dilemma of being sanctioned, it is also a mirror that inspires people to move forward. Although other manufacturers are currently displaying some functional chips, this is also a good start. After all, Kirin chips have been accumulated over 20 years of technology before they can achieve their future glory. Let’s take a look at the current struggle of the top three domestic mobile phone manufacturers in chips.
1, Xiaomi Songcone Electronics
This chip company under Xiaomi was registered on October 16, 2014. Less than a month after its establishment, it obtained the authorization license of Lianxin Technology's SDR1860 platform at a price of html of 1.103 billion yuan. This platform technology is very important because the technology of the five-mode LTE baseband equipped with Xiaomi's first self-developed chip, Pengpai S1, comes from this.
In April 2015, Pinecone Electronics completed the front-end design of SoC chip . htmlOn July 6, Pinecone Electronics completed the hardware design of the Pengpai S1 and performed the first slitting film. On September 26, the screen of the mobile phone equipped with the S1 lit up for the first time.
2017 On February 28, 2017, Pengpai S1 appeared in front of people with the release of Xiaomi 5C.
This is an octa-core 64-bit processor, which adopts TSMC's 28nmHPC+ process, adopts ARMv8 large-core architecture design of 4*A53 (2.2GHz) + 4*A53 (1.4GHz), and is equipped with a Mali T860 quad-core GPU, 32-bit voice DSP, and a 14-bit dual-core ISP.
However, due to patent licensing, the chip does not support CDMA network. In addition, due to the use of the 28nm process, the performance is much worse than mainstream chips (the Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 and Kirin 970 in the same year are both 10nm processes). So, unfortunately, Xiaomi’s self-developed SoC process pressed the “pause button” this year.
In April 2019, in order to cooperate with the accelerated implementation of Xiaomi's AIoT strategy, Pinecone Electronics split up and formed a new company Nanjing Dayu Semiconductor, specializing in the research and development of IoT chips and solutions with heterogeneous attributes (i.e., Internet of Things chip research and development).
Pengpai C1
On March 30, 2021, Xiaomi launched its first self-developed professional imaging chip Pengpai C1 (first release of Xiaomi Mix Fold). It has a dual filter configuration, which can realize parallel processing of high and low frequency signals, and improves signal processing efficiency by 100%. Combined with self-developed ISP+ algorithm, the performance of the image 3A (AF automatic focus, AWB white balance, AE automatic exposure) has been greatly improved.
specifically has three points: First, better automatic focus can greatly improve the focus ability of dark light, small objects and flat areas; second, more accurate white balance can also fully control complex mixed ambient light; third, more accurate automatic exposure can achieve exposure strategies more targeted.
021 On December 28, 2021, Xiaomi's first self-developed charging chip - The Paper P1 (first release of Xiaomi 12 Pro), was released, realizing the 120W single-cell charging solution for the first time. This chip has an ultra-high voltage 4:1 charging architecture and supports 1:1, 2:1 and 4:1 conversion modes, and all modes can be conducted in two-way directions. It can realize various charging functions such as wired 120W, wireless 50W, wireless reverse charging, etc. The technology of
is very good, because the single cell of can have a larger battery capacity under the same volume. Compared with other dual cell fast charging solutions, it can make more ease of use of the internal space of the mobile phone.
On July 1, 2022, Lei Jun officially announced a new self-developed chip on Weibo : Xiaomi Pengpai G1 battery management chip, and released on July 4 (first release of Xiaomi 12S Ultra). Its design inspiration is from the battery management system, one of the core technologies of for , which can perform millisecond real-time monitoring of mobile phone battery safety, as well as the most accurate battery life prediction in the industry, effectively improving the battery life of mobile phone .
In terms of battery health, it can monitor subtle changes caused by extreme situations such as falls and collisions to the internal materials of mobile phone battery cells, and can also dynamically analyze the reasonable temperature range of the battery in charging and heavy loading scenarios based on the temperature rise model. At the same time, battery maintenance functions can be provided according to the health of the battery cell to extend the battery life.
After the failure of S1, Xiaomi achieved good results through the professional chip C1/P1/G1 combination of subdivided items. In the future, we are still looking forward to the arrival of S2 chips. After all, SoC is the commanding heights in the chip field.
2, vivo V series professional imaging chip
021, V1 chip was released. According to the official introduction, the V1 chip is a professional imaging chip developed by vivo in-depth cooperation with mobile phone SoC manufacturers and took 24 months. It can cooperate with the main chip to improve shooting effect and experience, and has the characteristics of high computing power, low latency and low power consumption. With the help of V1 chip, the mobile phone can maximize the processing capacity during the same period, achieve an equivalent 32MB super cache, effectively reduce shooting delay, real-time noise reduction and frame insertion, making night scene shooting more powerful.
In addition, thanks to the high-speed data processing of the V1 chip, real-time preview of the night scene is achieved. Moreover, by transferring the shooting algorithm to the V1 chip, the hardware-level computing power can effectively reduce shooting power consumption by 50% compared to the ISP's software computing method.
On April 20 this year, vivo's second-generation self-developed chip - V1+, was released. Compared with the previous generation, in addition to improving image capabilities (more refined in night view video), the chip functions are also expanded to the performance and display fields, expanding support for gaming and video visual experience, truly realizing the use of one "core". In addition, energy efficiency and power consumption have been further improved. After a generation of new updates, the V-series chips of
vivo have become more comprehensive, which can bring good auxiliary effects to mobile phone SoCs. In addition, with vivo's powerful comprehensive imaging technology, the mobile phone image level has been successfully raised to a new level.
3, OPPO Mariana MariSilicon X
021 On December 14, OPPO released its first self-developed chip - Mariana MariSilicon X. The chip adopts an advanced 6nm process and has four major technological breakthroughs. It is the first NPU chip for independent imaging on the mobile terminal.
It integrates the self-developed MariNeuro AI computing unit and is equipped with independent DDR bandwidth, which brings 17% increments to the total bandwidth of the mobile phone system; it also integrates the self-developed MariLumi image processing unit, which supports processing bit widths up to 20 bits; the powerful performance of this chip pushes AI computing that can only be completed on the backend of traditional links to the front-end - the RAW domain with the most original information; it also realizes the separation processing of RGB and W pixels for the first time, maximizing the utilization of each pixel characteristics.
With the support of the above four cutting-edge technological breakthroughs,
has set a new standard for computing images, allowing Android AI videos to have 4K performance for the first time; and also allowing 4K videos to have AI capabilities for the first time.
Summary: Apart from Huawei, there are not no manufacturers who develop their own SoCs, but unfortunately Xiaomi failed. Later, Xiaomi adjusted its direction and turned to specialized chip segmentation, and made breakthroughs in both imaging and mobile phone battery systems; as for the two blue and green factories, they all seek breakthroughs in imaging, and each achieved very good results.
