Image source @ Visual China
Wen 丨 Wang Xinxi
Since 2021, there has been a core-making boom among mobile phone manufacturers. This year, the collective focus on image chips has become the consensus of mobile phone manufacturers to sprint to the high end.
Xiaomi regained the "surging paper", first launched the surging C1 ISP chip, and then launched a power chip surging P1, vivo took out the first ISP chip V1, OPPO also launched the first self-developed image dedicated NPU Mariana MariSilicon X, and this year for the first time in the OPPO Find X5 series.
Behind the battle of mobile phone manufacturers to build cores, from the experience level, on the one hand, it is to enhance the competitiveness of mobile phone photography, after all, the current consumer shooting demand is getting bigger and bigger, mobile phones are facing greater computing and high energy consumption, and optimizing image chips has also become a key breakthrough point.
But more importantly, manufacturers should break the stereotype of "assembly plant", establish the image of technology-based manufacturers, and break through to high-end brands. This is a path that smartphones have come to today, and seem to have become unavoidable.
In the past year, as Huawei faded out of the high-end market, Xiaomi OV was riveted to harvest Huawei's vacated share in the high-end market, but manufacturers suddenly found that consumers did not buy it, and most of the high-end market after Huawei's withdrawal was taken down by Apple.
The reason behind it is not complicated, the brand premium in the high-end market does not come from the stacking of components, because Qualcomm's chips, Sony's CMOS, Samsung's screen, you have me and everyone has. Manufacturers realize that the premium of high-end brands recognized by consumers must also be self-developed core technologies.
Mobile phone manufacturers collectively develop their own ISP chips, how is it different from SoC?
Judging from the path taken by several major domestic manufacturers at present, they are all focused on the special chip such as image chips. From the current point of view, the attention and heat caused by the outside world is still limited. Due to the excessive marketing of ISP chips by manufacturers, the controversy caused by them is quite large, and it is far less than the attention, recognition and influence caused by Huawei's HiSilicon Kirin (SoC) in the past.
Why?
From the high-end road of Huawei, Samsung and Apple, it can be known that in order to truly stand in the high-end market, two capabilities are indispensable, one is the self-research ability of SoC chips, and the other is the underlying system capability.
At present, the reason why OPPO, Xiaomi, and Vivo collectively launched image chips has attracted limited attention and heat, because ISP chips are an image signal processing chip, which is mainly responsible for the processing, editing and data optimization of images and pictures.
OPPO's Mariana X chip is tailored for mobile phone images, with the purpose of assisting computing to improve the camera effects of night scenes, portraits and so on.
According to OPPO, mariana MariSilicon X's powerful computing power and energy efficiency ratio increase the Find X5 Pro's ultra-clear night video resolution by 4 times, and perform pixel-level AI noise reduction processing on each frame, and the integrated self-developed image processing unit MariLumi can increase the dynamic range imaging capability to make night shots brighter.
That is to say, the current Xiaomi OV does not focus on the core capability level shared by Apple Samsung and Huawei - SoC chips.
Many chips are integrated in a mobile phone, each responsible for different functions. Including SoC chips, baseband chips, RF chips, memory chips, analog chips and sensor chips, imaging chips, etc.
SoC is called system-level chip, is the main chip - it is the chip integration of the core of the information system, is to integrate the key components of the system on a chip, SoC is generally composed of CPU, GPU, NPU and storage and other parts.
For example, SoCs such as Qualcomm Snapdragon and Huawei Kirin generally integrate many different functions: for example, the CPU is responsible for processing computing tasks; the GPU is responsible for image rendering; the baseband is responsible for communication; the ISP is responsible for processing camera data; the DSP is responsible for decoding; and the NPU is responsible for artificial intelligence operations. In short, the SoC is a system of the brain, heart, eyes and hands of a mobile phone, which is the central core system and the concentrated embodiment of the core capabilities of the mobile phone.
Among the current mobile phone manufacturers, only Apple, Google, Huawei, and Samsung have the strength to design SoC chips. At the level of supply chain manufacturers, there are Qualcomm, MediaTek and Tsinghua Unigroup.
According to Counterpoint's global smartphone AP/SoC chip shipment report in the fourth quarter of 2021, MediaTek, Qualcomm, and Apple ranked in the top three, and the sum of the three occupied 84% of the market share, and Huawei HiSilicon ranked sixth with a market share of 1%.
At present, it seems that Tsinghua Unigroup Zhanrui, which is considered to take over Huawei's Kirin in the future, is actually in terms of chip research and development capabilities and chip process technology, and there is still a lot of distance from Qualcomm and MediaTek.
Xiaomi, OPPO, vivo and other manufacturers are currently involved only in ISP, power management, NPU chips, etc., these are marginalized dedicated chips, this chip is optimized and improved for a specific dedicated function, NPU and ISP are more specifically responsible for visual processing work areas.
As mentioned earlier, the mobile phone SOC integrates different processing units such as GPU, CPU, Modem, ISP, NPU, etc., it also includes the implementation of ISP functions, and OPPO This chip mainly implements the ISP in soC, that is, the image processing unit and NPU, it is not like SoC, which involves the overall mobile phone computing, communication, image rendering, various decoding, algorithms, data and computing tasks and other comprehensive improvement.
Moreover, the SoC chip itself also has ISP and NPU functions, and the dedicated chip of this image processing function itself is actually duplicated with the image function of the SoC, and it still needs to be observed to what extent it can improve the image power.
Mobile phone manufacturers' self-developed SoCs can achieve deep integration of software and hardware, and comprehensively improve the user experience. For example, the refresh performance of the iPhone13 Pro is particularly good, because it is better than the Snapdragon 8Gen1 in terms of performance and power consumption, coupled with the combination of Apple's self-developed display algorithm driver chip and screen technology.
However, the soC chip is too difficult due to the integration of AP, BP, ISP and NPU modules, and the scale of the SoC chip is generally much larger than that of ordinary ASIC, coupled with the design difficulties caused by the deep submicron process, the complexity of soC design is greatly improved, whether it is the process or the cost of tape-outs is very high.
In SoC design, simulation and verification is the most complex and time-consuming part of the SoC design process, accounting for about 50% to 80% of the entire chip development cycle, and the use of advanced design and simulation verification methods is the key to the success of SoC design.
Based on the need for chips to support the brand premium, manufacturers need some differentiated hard currency that can confirm their own technical image. Whether it is OPPO, Xiaomi, vivo are starting from ISP chips, the reason is that from a technical point of view, they do not yet have this layer of capabilities in SoC design and development.
At present, the field of mobile phone imaging has the deepest degree of internal volume, and almost all non-Apple manufacturers are focusing on the competition of the ability layer of imaging, highlighting the advantages of self-developed image chips, and can also harvest the industry's concerns, and there are differentiated highlights in the comparison with friends, which can highlight their own technical capabilities.
Mobile phone manufacturers are willing to really develop is a good thing, from easy to difficult is inevitable, first do ISP, to fast charging chips to power management chips, etc., but if you want to create high-end influence, you must ultimately overcome SoC chips.
Apple's Samsung Huawei's high-end is inseparable from the self-developed SoC
The author earlier summarized the brand value that needs to be recognized by the market to sit at the high end - and the brand value comes from the key point of controlling the value chain - Apple relies on the experience and brand premium of the integration of software and hardware formed by the operating system + SoC chip self-development; Samsung is the key link in controlling the industrial chain - including self-developed SoC chips and screens; Huawei also comes from its core competitiveness in the Kirin SoC self-developed chip and 5G level + underlying system.
In short, the high-end of Apple's Samsung Huawei is inseparable from its self-developed SoC chip.
We know that the iPhone really opened the era of smart phones is the advent of the iPhone4, but many people may not know that the Samsung chip used in the first three generations of the iPhone, the iPhone 4 was born in 2010, equipped with Apple's first self-developed chip A4, which opened the road of Apple's self-developed chip and also achieved this epoch-making product. At the same time, the iPad also began to use A-series chips.
Since then, the A series chips have been improved in the process process, CPU architecture and GPU core, and by the release of A6 in 2012, non-standard ARM architecture designs have begun to be adopted, laying the foundation for the future supremacy of the A series. Today, Apple's A-series chips have evolved to A15 bionic chips.
In addition, in other lines of Apple's business, self-developed chips are also placed in a strategic position. For example, in 2014, the first generation of Apple Watch was released, equipped with a self-developed S1 chip, and in 2016, Apple successively launched S1P and S2, and now iterates to the S7 chip. In 2016, the original AirPods were released, which also carried the self-developed W1 chip, opening the era of TWS headphones.
At present, Apple has overcome its long-term shortcomings - baseband chips, according to the relevant supply chain chip news, iPhone 14 or Apple's last iPhone product equipped with a third-party baseband chip. By the iPhone 15, Apple will use all of its own chips.
From Huawei's point of view, HiSilicon Kirin is a SoC independently designed by Huawei, in which the architecture of CPU and GPU applications is authorized by ARM. NPU used Cambrian products, and later carried a self-developed NPU, code-named Leonardo da Vinci. The Kirin processor is benchmarked against the Apple A series, Qualcomm Snapdragon, and Samsung's Orion processor.
The reason why Huawei's development momentum around 2020 is more threatening to Apple is that Huawei's Kirin 9000 chip used a 5nm process process at that time. It was also the world's first 5NM process of 5G mobile phone SoC, which integrated 15.3 billion transistors, 30% more than the A14 chip at that time.
At that time, Huawei's momentum in the high-end market even surpassed Samsung, because Huawei was in addition to the self-developed SoC chip at that time, and the underlying capabilities of the system were also on the rise.
For example, starting from Huawei's EMUI9.1 system, from GPU Turbo, Huawei Super File System (EROFS), and the simplification of the Ark compiler mechanism - the latter takes the virtual machine away and opens the knife at the bottom of Android, and developers compile the high-level language into machine code in the development environment at one time, improving execution performance and smooth experience. This also boosts Huawei's premium premium for high-end brands.
In the eyes of the industry at that time, Huawei began to align with Apple in the two core capabilities of the bottom layer of the system and the chip.
Samsung has established a high-end brand in the overseas market, but then continued to decline, on the one hand, it has the self-development ability of SoC chips, but it is a short board in the system experience, which also makes its high-end brand premium less than an important support point.
Self-developed chips combined with system-level software tuning optimization, in addition to achieving the upward trend of product experience and quality, the key lies in driving the rise and climbing of the brand, and then relying on the irreplaceable value and leading edge of these links to support its high brand premium.
But unfortunately, with the fading of Huawei, no domestic manufacturer can connect to this layer of capabilities.
In fact, the success of self-developed SoC is not only to enhance the brand premium, but also to turn chip procurement into chip foundry, saving tens of billions of chip costs, and after the cost is reduced, there is a stronger initiative in market product pricing.
Dedicated chips save the high-end, self-developed SoC or a hurdle that cannot be bypassed
At present, the purpose of mobile phone manufacturers' self-developed image chips is to strengthen the technical image, and the strategic significance is greater than the substantive significance of the user experience level.
In the eyes of some industry insiders, it makes no sense for mobile phone manufacturers to do general SoC chips. The reasons are also not complicated.
First of all, it must be too difficult. Not to mention its overall technical difficulty, from the perspective of the industry, it is very difficult to catch up on SOC chips, not to mention Apple, even Intel, NVIDIA, Qualcomm these manufacturers have done very top, and then how to do these head manufacturers.
The second is that consumers can be fooled. For ordinary consumers, they may not understand the essential difference between SOC chips and dedicated chips, and an important criterion for consumers' recognition of high-end products is the ability to develop chips, regardless of what chips. Special chips are also chips, which can also stimulate consumers' national emotions to drive the brand upwards.
To some extent, manufacturers realize that if they have been limited by the supply chain capacity of chip manufacturers and cannot achieve deep integration between software and hardware, then product performance and experience in the high-end market are often difficult to be recognized by users.
However, the integration degree and barriers of SoC chips are relatively high, and it is very difficult to overcome them in a short period of time, and it is necessary to invest in capital technology for a long time, and it is better to do peripheral chips first and market first.
But it is also because soC is difficult, once overcome, it can often play an immediate effect at the level of brand barriers and product technical image, software and hardware optimization.
Relatively speaking, foreign giants are more inclined to control this core competitiveness at the bottom.
For example, from the perspective of foreign giants, in addition to Apple and Qualcomm, Google is also planning to equip the upcoming Pixel 6 smartphone with its self-developed SoC chip. Code-named "Whitechapel," the chip is based on a 5nm process and was developed jointly by Google and Samsung's semiconductor division.
According to Nikkei Asia, Google plans to develop its own chip design to replace CPUs provided by Intel, AMD, MediaTek and other brands.
From a domestic point of view, mobile phone manufacturers self-developed imaging chips for the market and consumers is also a good thing, after all, willing to do chips is a huge progress, ISP chip self-development can also enhance the brand image to a certain extent, create differentiated highlights, to a certain extent can also promote the development of the chip industry, the establishment of talent system, etc., but if you want to achieve a breakthrough in self-developed chips from dedicated chips to general SoC chips, there is still a long way to go.
In today's smart phone market, the times and people's hearts have changed, mobile phone consumers are also growing and maturing, no longer the past easy to be fooled by the small white, some domestic manufacturers have played the card surface of self-developed ISP chips, but in the SoC chip is still mediatek and Qualcomm chips, in the representative of the core capability level of SoC chips still did not play their own differentiated advantages, of course, as mentioned earlier, manufacturers want to overcome SoC chips, but the strength level is not allowed.
However, the author suggests that manufacturers should not over-elevate at the level of publicity and marketing, or confuse the concept, gap and difference between ISP chips and SoC chips.
After all, there is still a huge gap between ISP chips and SoC chips that are recognized by the general public as representing the underlying core technology. If the expectations triggered by the consumer-facing marketing level are too high, but the actual technical background does not reach this level, it will often give consumers a sense of loss in expectations, and it is not conducive to the product and brand to gradually stand in the high-end market.
From this point of view, to sit in the high-end market for a long time, starting from the peripheral special chips to accumulate technical background and push up the brand premium is a game-breaking idea, but the ultimate goal may still need to face the flagship main chip - SoC, which may be a hurdle that manufacturers cannot bypass after reaching a certain height.