The "retaliatory growth" dividend and the migration of the global market from 4G to 5G have not brought significant improvements to the existing mobile phone industry, on the contrary, under the global semiconductor shortage, the trend of industry involution has become more and more obvious.
And Chinese mobile phone manufacturers are increasing their investment in hard technology. Among them, OPPO shows a rare forward-looking idea in the industry.
Three years ago, OPPO founder and CEO Chen Mingyong announced at the first OPPO Future Technology Conference that OPPO will invest 50 billion yuan in research and development budgets in three years, in addition to continuing to pay attention to cutting-edge technologies such as 5G, artificial intelligence, AR, and big data, it is also necessary to build the underlying hardware core technology and software engineering and system capabilities.
At the "Third OPPO Future Technology Conference" on December 14-15, the first self-developed chip of OPPO named Mariana MariSilicon X (hereinafter referred to as "Mariana X") was unveiled and will enter the stage of market verification in the first quarter of 2022.
But the more important significance is that this marks that OPPO has begun to have a scientific and technological core with enough depth and hardness to create a big scene in the future when thinking about the future of all things.
There is a "core" rejecting the inner roll
Shot the first self-developed chip, OPPO pointed the Mariana X to the NPU chip dedicated to imaging, why?
In today's increasingly serious product homogenization of the mobile phone industry, mobile phone images are recognized as one of the few product directions that still have enough room for development. In fact, observing the consumption behavior of mobile phone products, it is not difficult to find that due to the popularity of short video content, it is also more direct to the performance of the camera to put forward higher requirements.
Especially the implementation of massive data processing 4K or higher definition, the current mobile phone hardware performance is still stretched. Compared with larger cameras, mobile phones are limited in size and cannot be crammed into larger hardware in a limited space.
Therefore, with the support of algorithms, AI algorithms must be introduced into images to greatly improve the actual experience of images, and "computing images" also put forward higher requirements for the computing power of mobile phone hardware.
However, the vertical integration of mobile phone image links is one of the most difficult technical areas in the mobile phone industry to break the wall, but this is also the reason why OPPO wants to firmly dive into the "Mariana".
At present, although some manufacturers have launched ISP chips designed for mobile phone images, whether it is integrated in soCs or ISP chips independent of motherboards, there is still a problem of insufficient computing power under the framework of this idea.
It is precisely in anticipation of various limitations that OPPO is determined to "solve core problems with core technologies".
"Our self-developed NPU can maximize the problem of computing power and energy efficiency." Jiang Bo, senior director of OPPO products, explained OPPO's thinking, as a chip dedicated to mobile phone images, Mariana X and SoC together constitute the "left and right brain" of the core computing of mobile phones.
Of course, the result is always much easier than the process sounds.
In fact, mobile phone image is not specialized in a hardware or algorithm can achieve the expected effect, this is a long link of systematic engineering, from the front-end sensor, lens, to the ISP chip responsible for image processing, and then to the later tuning optimization, all need to achieve deep cooperation.
In the past decade, OPPO has accumulated a deep accumulation in customized image sensors, camera modules and lenses, and has also deepened its cultivation in AI algorithms. The launch of the self-developed NPU chip means that OPPO has become one of the few terminal manufacturers that truly redesign the image full link.
The reason why Mariana X can break through is because of its reshaping of the mobile phone image link, which raises the AI calculation done in the back end under normal circumstances to the front-end RAW domain with more original information, reduces the situation that the traditional link is converted multiple times and causes the image data to lose information details, and strives to achieve the best image effect.
Under the combination of multiple sets of technologies, oppo Mariana X chip can achieve 4K+20bit RAW+AI+Ultra HDR specification night scene video, which has reached a new limit of mobile phone image computing power.
The Mariana X image processing unit supports processing bit widths up to 20bit and supports 20-bit Ultra HDR, which is 4 times the capability of the current flagship platform HDR. In the instant presentation of the picture, the brightness contrast between the brightest and darkest places reaches 1 million to 1.
It is precisely because of the product presentation of such a powerful technical application that OPPO is more convinced that the NPU dedicated to imaging will drive "one machine and two cores" to become the future development direction of mobile phone imaging.
Brave the "Deep Water Zone"
The breakthrough in the self-developed chip is a big step for OPPO to brave the deep water area of hard technology.
In the system capacity building of hard and soft service collaboration, the breakthrough of the underlying core technology is an important prerequisite. Therefore, the launch of Mariana X will elevate OPPO's technological competitiveness to a new dimension.
In the future direction of innovation, OPPO proposed the "3+N+X" strategy, of which "3" represents hardware basic technology, software basic technology and service basic technology; "N" represents the competence center, including interconnection, multimedia, artificial intelligence and security privacy, etc., and "X" represents differentiated technologies, including flash charging, imaging, new forms and AR augmented reality technology.
"In 2019, we said that we must have the courage to sharpen a sword for ten years, and have the courage to step into the deep water area of research and development, which lasted three years, and now I can say that the first step we took to step into the deep water area was this chip." Chen Mingyong said so.
But does OPPO "core" have to be self-developed?
Long ago, OPPO realized that "time differences" and "generational differences" can create differences in software, hardware, and even service synergies, and these differences may be the key opportunities for vendors to differentiate in the in-volume market.
"There is no NPU on the market that can meet the OPPO scenarios, algorithms, to achieve the expected optimal solution, through the self-developed Mariana X, to achieve the OPPO self-developed algorithm and chip of the deep coupling, the image chain from sensor customization to reception processing, and then to the image processing chain optimization, so that the algorithm in the NPU to achieve performance maximization and optimization."
As Jiang Bo said, this is OPPO's differentiated advantage as a mobile phone terminal manufacturer.
In 2018, OPPO officially established a research institute to increase the intensity of the field of underlying technology research. In addition to the chip project "Mariana Plan", software engineering and cloud service capacity building are named "Pantanal Plan" and "Amazon Plan" to create a full set of underlying capabilities.
The "watershed" of 6nm
This "advantage" is difficult to be erased in a short period of time, because when designing the Mariana X, OPPO adopted a "saturated" stacking approach, and what is even more surprising is that OPPO challenged the 6nm high-process process as soon as it was shot.
6nm process due to the ecology to be improved, research and development is more difficult, longer than the mature process of 6 to 9 months, and 6nm needs a more high-end EUV lithography technology, compared to the low process of DUV lithography technology cost is higher, reaching the level of tens of millions of DOLLARs, 2 to 3 times higher than 12nm, the cost of a test tape-out as high as 100 million yuan.
In such a difficult and high-risk situation, OPPO invests in order to solve the pain points and value points on the user side.
Mariana X was able to successfully mass-produce commercially, giving OPPO a good start on the road to self-developed chips. At present, there are only 4 manufacturers in the country that have the ability to design 6nm process chips - Huawei HiSilicon, MediaTek, Alibaba and OPPO.
It can be said that OPPO, which successfully conquered the 6nm process, has obtained the admission ticket for the high-end process, and the chip is foundry by TSMC, which means that OPPO has entered the list of strategic customers of TSMC with a high probability. This is actually a recognition of oppo's chip design strength.
"A technology company, if there is no underlying core technology, there can be no future, and high-end products without core technology are even more castles in the air." Previously, Chen Mingyong had stated so.
Technological breakthroughs will also promote OPPO to launch a new round of challenges to the high-end of products. The opening film of the decade will also be used in the first quarter of next year for the flagship new Find X series.
In addition to the self-developed chip, OPPO Air Glass also attracts countless eyes with its light appearance and cool experience.
Among them, OPPO Air Glass belongs to the above-mentioned product category representing the differentiation ability "X", before that, OPPO has launched two generations of AR products, the release of this new generation of products, completed the transformation from toys to tools, OPPO has its own understanding of such products: for auxiliary display products, information is the user's most eager to break through the demand pain points, products need to be easy to use and practical.
"Mariana X, it's just a small step for us, our footsteps won't stop. We will continue to invest resources and use a team of thousands of people to engage in self-developed chips in a down-to-earth manner. No matter how many challenges lie ahead, we will persevere and insist that Qingshan will not relax", at this year's Future Science and Technology Conference, Chen Mingyong's statement is obviously a more determined ambition for OPPO to continue to explore the deep water area of science and technology.
In the era of inner volume, OPPO did not follow the tide, but returned to the original intention, using key technologies to solve key problems, even in the face of high-risk uncertainty, but also invariably invested, the right road, not afraid of far.