Photo: Liu Xueying
Source: 21tech
Author: Luo Yiqi
Editor: Li Qingyu
Entering the mature development cycle of the smart phone industry, the replacement cycle is constantly extending, which is behind the hardware itself more "anti-hit", the optimization of software capabilities has also played a great role.
At the same time, with the iteration of Internet capabilities, the interaction mode is gradually moving towards new changes, and the hardware manufacturers in it have begun to face new interconnection methods, which means that the software ecological capabilities also need to be continuously expanded.
Vivo vice president, vivo AI global research institute around the 21st century business herald and other reporters said in an interview with the 21st Century Business Herald and other reporters that smart phones inherently carry the role of a bridge connecting the physical world and the digital world, and for the future of the "meta-universe", hardware manufacturers need to plan their capabilities from four aspects: first, do a good job of the underlying strength; second, do a good job of connecting the physical world; third, be able to touch the service and control related capabilities of the digital world; fourth, It is necessary to bring together services and capabilities, that is, ecological related capabilities.
"The mobile phone operating system carries the mission of connecting the digital world and the physical world, and strong performance, wisdom and convenience, humanistic care and security protection are the directions we are most concerned about now." He continued.
Its recent release of the original system, OriginOS Ocean, is a manifestation. Yang Jian, vice president of vivo, said that on the basis of the original system OriginOS 1.0, OriginOS Ocean aims to build a new interactive experience between people and the world, promote the closer integration of the digital world and the physical world, and even set off a new digital revolution.
This is also the reason why hardware manufacturers have paid more and more attention to the construction of the external developer ecosystem and the construction of the ecology around the Internet of Things vendors over the years.
Software global provisioning
On the basis of the native Android system, major mobile phone manufacturers have built a relatively differentiated performance for software system and interface optimization in recent years.
"The underlying technology is divided into two parts: hardcore and interactive underlying technology." The surrounding reporters told reporters that in terms of software, it is necessary to look at the three main levels of the kernel, the middle layer and the ecology of the mobile phone operating system. "The upper ecological layer is more difficult to expand, but the lower two layers are technical challenges or feasibility, and I think I am very optimistic." He continued.
Among them, the kernel mainly refers to the native mobile phone operating system, "now our judgment is that the Linux kernel in the past ten years to the future use, whether it is industry-level applications, or mobile phone side side there is no obstacle." Therefore, our strategy above this is to do a good job of iteration and evolution of the kernel. "Around indications.
The middle layer is one of the main directions that mobile phone manufacturers focus on experience improvement. "We have the IDE environment, the surface at the middle end, the render layer, and together we call it a framework. For example, today's vivo watch, if equipped with enough memory, should be able to support about five thousand applications. He said.
At the top of the ecological layer, it is also the layer where the domestic industry generally encounters development bottlenecks. This is also why Chinese mobile phone companies still use google ecology overseas, and the current Chinese Internet industry basically does not have a systematic ecology in the world." As a member of the industry, we have a limited role on our own, which also requires the cooperation and joint efforts of the industry. ”
Among them, regarding the underlying technology of software capabilities, the surrounding introduction, vivo will have a heavier investment than the industry. The reason is that it is necessary to serve the trend, but also to meet the current pain points and needs of consumers.
"At present, the general replacement cycle has been extended from 18 months to about 24 months, and the most user feedback is that the use process will encounter slow caton problems and performance problems, and we found that instead of optimizing at a single point, it is better to re-invest at the software kernel level." He further pointed out that this mainly includes storage management, computing processing, display and full-scene fluency, etc., through global management such as connection, compilation, surface user standard system interface, etc., hoping to better serve the gradual iteration of mobile phones.
Vice President of Vivo, President of Vivo AI Global Research Institute around
Image source: vivo official
For example, in terms of computing performance, Vivo has designed three engines: high real-time computing, intelligent scheduling computing and high-speed ride chasing; in terms of memory performance, Vivo believes that it is necessary to establish an independent virtual cache unit to achieve systematic global management of the system's resident memory life cycle, application memory allocation and recycling, and DRAM and SoC internal cache.
For example, in the power consumption track, the general rule in the industry is to save 5%-7% more electricity every year. "Last year was a big year for industry applications, of which the game power consumption is relatively large, the small video refresh time has increased more, and the conference call and video call are also more, which means that if the trend of saving 5%-7% of electricity per year is grown according to the conventional, in fact, it cannot catch up with the consumption of the application." So I think 2021 will be a year when many people will feel that mobile phone power consumption is relatively poor. "Surrounding analysis, then in 2022, although the growth trend of application ecology and behavior of power consumption will be relatively moderate, it also needs to be better optimized through the integration of many of the above technologies.
"For example, we use intelligent freeze 3.0 technology, coupled with AI adaptive ability, multiple technologies superimposed, vivo last year can save 6%-7% more power, so every year there will be a breakthrough." He continued.
Hardware and software capabilities match
Since the development of smart phones, software has not only existed as application optimization, but also as the ability gradually penetrates downwards, and even the software capabilities are gradually hardware into chip-level capabilities of some core functions, which is increasingly becoming one of the development directions of mobile phone manufacturers.
Although the current mobile phone giants have different times in the construction of chip teams, they basically have a more mature team and launch chip products that can be commercially used on mobile phone terminals. And in the past few years, it is also a process of continuous precipitation and evolution of capabilities.
"About two years ago, we officially established the chip division, so we have enough understanding of chips." Around the introduction, generally speaking, Vivo's chip design team will communicate with the chip supplier team for 24 months of chip design work several times a year, that is, it is necessary to combine based on the insight into industry trends and consumer needs, and then achieve joint customization of commercial chips after 24 months.
As for the current definition of vivo's chip capability, the surrounding said, "Of course, this must first take into account the feelings of the industrial chain and partners, after all, the current industrial chain is still a large cooperation environment." The chips we make are all (involved) relatively small (business modules), such as display chips. Next, there may be storage processing related, (computing) co-processing related chips. But we are clear that we will not do the main chip of the mobile phone and the 5G Moderm chip. "Around the introduction, among them, algorithm class and architecture class chips, based on the deployment of independently built cores, Vivo will complete the design process by itself; while the cache management chip or co-processing chip, Vivo will consider working with industry partners to promote the landing.
In this process, there is also a process of implementing software capabilities and ideas into the design of hardware products.
Surrounding indications, such as the implementation of the algorithm and VCAP accumulated capabilities into the V1 image chip, is similar logic, and now it is doing a global cache management system, the core of which is to quickly release the cache after shutting down large applications to reduce the pressure on the operation of the mobile phone.
The new challenge may also lie in the ecological topology for the era of the Internet of Everything, but because this is not the efforts of a single manufacturer can be optimized, more importantly, the active integration of the IoT ecology needs to involve sufficient openness between manufacturers, and even business interoperability.
According to the surrounding analysis, the IoT industry is divided into at least three layers: IoT protocol chips, IoT interconnection, and open alliances. Among them, in the interconnection part, terminal manufacturers have a layout, and Vivo also has its own full connection protocol.
"We did the IoT Open Alliance three years ago, and we believe that the IoT ecosystem is a very prosperous camp, and ecological partners will want their devices to be commercially expanded on an open and equal agreement." He continued, and after the protocol-based connection, how should IoT devices interact and then do ecological support? "We noticed that the IoT ecological partners are most concerned about two points: the need for an equal and open industrial environment; can I (ecological partners) products be sold in your company (terminal manufacturers) relatively large sales channels, vivo in 2021 also did smart interconnection certification, the next will be announced."
Editor: Lu Taoran