"This is the first time in the domestic display industry to hold a large-scale conference for a chip alone!" In the face of January 11, Hisense released China's first self-developed 8K AI picture quality chip in Beijing, and industry insiders pointed out that the performance of the top product and the specifications of the top matching conference indicate that the Hisense 8K AI chip will open a "new" era.
Make up for the "short board" of that card neck!
What determines the performance of a display system? At the press conference, Hisense pointed out that the key core technologies are concentrated at both ends of the "screen" and "core". The strength of the domestic screen industry has long been different from the past:
For example, in 2021, the LCD screen production capacity in the domestic mainland region will account for 67% of the world. Especially in the large-size color TV production capacity and product quality, it is the world's leading. Taking Hisense as an example, in 2021, its procurement of BOE's LCD screen scale is as high as 10 million pieces, and it is expected that in 2022, there will still be more than 10 billion worth of tens of millions of screen purchases.
"The screen has achieved autonomous control!" This is the basic face of China's display industry. Not only liquid crystal display, OLED display technology, but also laser display technology, micro LED display technology, etc., domestic companies have either kept pace with international giants, or stood on the highest peak in the world. Including Samsung, Sony, such as the global color TV high-end brands, have also purchased a large number of domestic display screens. Powerful competitors on the "screen" in the past, such as the Japanese and Korean color TV camps, are becoming "big customers" on the domestic screen.
However, while the rise of the screen, the domestic color TV industry is still "subject to people" in the global high-end market: especially in high-end products, there is still a certain gap with brands such as Sony. The fundamental reason for this is that the "chip" is subject to people. Without high-end picture quality chips, it is impossible to really compete with overseas giants in high-end products. In fact, after China's display industry has achieved a global leading position in various screen technologies, overseas color TV brands have transferred the "soft and hard power" center of "discourse competition" and "quality competition" to "picture quality chips". Typical products such as Sony's X1/XR, Samsung Neo quantum dot processor, LG α9 chip and other products are their respective "differentiation" competition points after the "external procurement screen".
Before Hisense launched the 8K AI picture quality chip, Hisense has a history of 22 consecutive years of color TV chip research and development. Since Hisense established the integrated circuit project team in 1999, Hisense has long been firm in its video industry strategy of taking picture quality chips as one of its "core competitiveness". In 2015, Hisense launched a new generation of architecture Hi-View Pro ultra-high-definition picture quality engine chip, breaking the monopoly of overseas giants on ultra-high-definition 4K picture quality chips for the first time.
Since then, hisense quality chips have been iterating continuously for the past 5 years. In 2020, the fourth generation of chips successfully lit up the stacked tv and achieved mass production. In terms of local image quality optimization functions such as MEMC (Motion Estimation Motion Compensation) and contrast, the chip has approached or even surpassed similar products of overseas brands such as Sony, and has become a generation of "artifacts" with the highest integration, exceptionally powerful functions and outstanding performance in 4K picture quality chips.
However, competing with international giants of the same quality is not the end of Hisense. The future of the display industry is moving towards 8K. Although in 2020 and 2021, the sales scale of domestic 8K TVs will only be more than 100,000 units per year, but the future value of 8K is self-evident: after all, when 2K TVs and 4K TVs first emerged, they only started from tens of thousands of sales every year. Hisense, on the other hand, has now deployed 8K LCD TVs, 8K laser TVs, 8K small-pitch LED commercial displays, 8K medical professional products, 8K radio and television monitors and many other "differentiated applications and display technologies" product lines - having its own 8K picture quality chips "Although not imminent", but it is related to the hisense video industry in the next 10 years of global commanding heights!
The significance of 8K picture quality chips does not belong to Hisense itself. One of the key points of the next generation of application technology in China's audiovisual industry is also ultra-high definition. China has successively broken through many bottlenecks in the 8K audio-visual industry chain such as 8K screen, 5G and other 8K transmission, radio and television 8K business standards. This makes the 8K picture quality chip, for China to make up for the shortcomings of the 8K ultra-high-definition strategy, is also a bottleneck that must be gnawed down.
Around 2019, Hisense's picture quality chip research and development focus has been laid out to the future 8K standard. Years of technical accumulation, finally at the end of 2021 mass production of China's first fully self-developed 8K AI picture quality chip, to achieve the next generation of radio and television audio-visual standards, major node technology products "from scratch" leap. At the same time, this model of HV8107 chip also makes Hisense image quality processing and integration technology stand at the top of the world, so that Hisense video industry chain and products have a foundation with international giants in the highest-end, all-dimensional competition.
The era of true fully autonomous "top matching"
There are different solutions to this. For example, use 4 4K quality chips to drive an 8K screen to optimize the picture quality; for example, purchase 8K picture quality chips from overseas companies, or purchase the ip of picture quality chips of overseas companies, do secondary development by yourself, and form your own 8K picture quality chips. Either of them means "subject to people." Among them, the most typical bottleneck is that whether it is the 4 pieces of 4K chips mined from the outside to do the top 8K display products, or the external mining of 8K picture quality chips, 8K picture quality chip IP and then secondary development, its procurement is not the industry's top products - for example, the lack of built-in AI quality processing technology, for which some domestic color TV brands have to develop or further outsource the external AI co-location chip to make up for the shortcomings; or the processing performance of the external quality chip is relatively low, for example, it does not have 120HZ 8K processing capability. Have to meet the higher image quality performance requirements by adding a MEMC chip...
Although these compromise methods can solve the manufacturing problems of 8K color TVs and other products, they are all "fundamentally subject to people" and have to make certain discounts in performance - especially when the coprocessor and core picture quality chip technology are different from each other, and the lack of matching between the two will inevitably lead to performance degradation. This compromise technology solution also greatly limits the accumulation and understanding of the experience of relevant enterprises in image quality processing technology, laws and algorithms: after all, other people's chips and IP are a complete "black box" for users.
Hisense's new generation of 8K AI picture quality chip HV8107 will completely solve the above problems. On the one hand, the new generation of picture quality chips that Hisense has started in 2015 has aimed at the strategic proposition of "controlling your own destiny" of "independent control". Although Hisense picture quality chips, as a dedicated chip, it is impossible to start from all the underlying control and general computing instruction sets and architectures, but Hisense adheres to the "national and open source" information technology and electronic technology in the basic route selection, realizes a new generation of engineering platform from the bottom of all core technologies based on "independent technology framework and domestic advanced technology", and achieves the "national autonomy" of "being subject to people from the root".
At the same time, Hisense's new generation of picture quality chips, that is, adhering to the "universal international ultra-high-definition standard", will also fully integrate its own understanding of display. At present, Hisense has formed 260 open chip patents, and there are countless secret commercial technologies. In HV8107, Shanghai Xin is to further innovate algorithms, improve computing power, fully embrace the basic needs of the next 8K display for at least 10 years, and create a basic platform product with "strong potential".
Among them, in terms of basic performance, HV8107 has two CPUs, forming two core system control and four core image quality control capabilities respectively. HV8107 has an NPU AI neuron processing unit with a computing power of 1.2TFLOPS, which achieves a strong computing power support in image quality calculations to meet the needs of high-performance image quality optimization, especially AI-inspired algorithms; through AI object detection, high-precision motion estimation compensation, AI detection for faces can achieve skin color improvement, and can help improve low-resolution images to higher resolution pixel clarity levels. The PQ calculation module in HV8107 is to achieve full path 12-bit, internal 16-bit color calculation, support 48-bit color depth, 7897 color point control, to achieve accurate color improvement; PQ calculation module also has the ultimate contrast, color precision and sharpness perception to improve processing capabilities, support 3300+ 16-bit color depth under the pixel accurate reconstruction, smooth progressive, support 26880 partition control, super HDR adjustment contrast, Significantly enhance the dark and light levels of the picture, the picture to an unprecedented clarity, PQ calculation module also built-in MEMC algorithm technology, bringing 8K 120hz motion contrast and fluency improvement.
Overall, the performance specifications and integration of HV8107 have reached an unprecedented height, especially the combination of the application of AI technology and 8K image quality, bringing this Hisense chip a historic performance subversion, so that it has enough strength to match the top video applications such as radio and television surveillance and medical display, and compete with similar products of international giants.
At the release of Hisense 8K AI picture quality chip, Xu Wenli, deputy director of the Department of Electronic Information of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, said that Hisense has been firmly on the road of localization of TV chips in China for more than 20 years... The successful development of 8KAI picture quality chip and the realization of independent research and development, independent controllability, eliminated all technical barriers in the field of picture quality processing segmentation, and is an excellent case of upstream and downstream collaborative innovation in the industrial chain. Yu Zhitao, vice president of Hisense Group Holdings, said, "Chips are the core underlying technology of Hisense's big display strategy. The global display industry has shifted from the competition of 'screen' and the competition of sales volume to the competition of 'core' and the competition of audio and picture quality. Hisense endured the loneliness of 22 years of "one core and one intention", formed a complete series of chip products, formed a unique advantage on the picture quality track, and got rid of homogeneous competition. ”
In the competition of global display technology, we will further seize the opportunity of picture quality, seize the opportunity of forward-looking standards, and seize the opportunity of future trends! "The breakthrough of Hisense picture quality chip, with its own efforts and actions, proves that only "innovation" can stand at the apex, only "innovation" can win the future law of industry competition, and bring successful experience and ideas to the development of the national display industry. To borrow the words of Xu Wenli, deputy director of the Electronic Information Department of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, it is expected that more Chinese companies will actively participate in the research and development, promotion and application of display chips, and promote the overall level of the industrial chain - in China, in the field of consumer electronics has achieved the world's largest scale, color TV shipments have ranked first in the global market for many years, and the display panel has also achieved the world's first in the context, and the early full realization of "the world's first in the high-end market"!