On January 11, 2022, Beijing time, Hisense released China's first fully self-developed 8K AI picture quality chip, which is also the fifth generation of picture quality chip since Hisense entered the chip field. It is reported that from the first generation of Hisense "xinxin", Hisense's five-generation picture quality chip replacement, has been able to cover 2K, 4K, 8K full resolution range, fully support the current display equipment, and now the fifth generation of AI quality chips from 4K to 8K leapfrog development, but also the integration of the era of science and technology AI attributes, top resolution support, tens of millions of pixel precision structure, 10,000-level partition control and other characteristics, enough to represent the most advanced level in the field of domestic TV chips.
"In the post-epidemic era, the global TV market will usher in a new round of "inner volume", picture quality is the only way out, and it is not only the panel that determines the quality of TV, the chip status is equally important. Hisense has always looked at chip development from the perspective of life and death." Yu Zhitao, vice president of Hisense Group, has expressed his great importance to the research and development of TV chips countless times in public, and this is indeed the case.
As we all know, since the epidemic, the global chip shortage has had a great impact on all walks of life in China, from the mobile phones that are most closely related to consumer life, to computer graphics cards, and even the automotive field has shown different degrees of "shortage", behind all this is because the core technology of chip manufacturing is in the hands of others. In view of the technical barriers encountered by China in the above fields and the current situation of global lack of cores, Hisense's fifth-generation 8K TV chip has undoubtedly injected a shot in the arm for China's TV industry.
7 years and 5 generations of chips self-improvement road
In June 2005, Hisense successfully developed China's first digital video processing chip with independent property rights to achieve mass production, after ten years of technology accumulation, in 2015 Hisense officially launched the first chip for picture quality improvement - Hi-View Pro ultra-high-definition image quality engine chip generation, since then Hisense has become the only TV brand in China with a completely independent high-end picture quality chip. Subsequently, in 2017 and 2018, Hisense launched the second and third generations of ultra-high-definition image quality engine chips. At this time, 12 years have passed since Hisense's first TV chip, and the picture quality chip continuously launched during the period has given Hisense the ability to define products.
The third generation of "Xinxin" was born in 2018 at the AWE exhibition debut, during which Hisense also said that it has established a highly vertically integrated industrial chain layout from core chips to displays, and officially announced its entry into the field of TV chips. At the same time, Hisense is also beginning to develop the fourth generation of "Xinxin", and puts the "8K AI Picture Environment Engine Chip" on the agenda.
In the following year, Hisense continued to increase investment in the chip field, in 2020, Hisense's fourth-generation "Xinxin" Hi-View Pro ultra-high-definition picture quality engine was launched, along with the Hisense LCD stacked screen display solution, which can be said to be a comprehensive upgrade attempt of the LCD TV display effect. The fourth generation of "Xinxin" introduces such as multi-screen display control technology, solves technical difficulties such as super-resolution improvement and MEMC through AI technology, and processes all on-chip image quality processing IP based on 4K/8K resolution, which is the same as the mainstream TV chip function of the contemporary image quality to improve low resolution to high resolution.
"The current larger and larger TV size is the inevitable result of market trends. However, the screen is more likely to expose the disadvantages of picture quality, and the user demand to meet the needs to combine the double leap of large screen and high-quality picture quality, so picture quality technology is becoming more and more important. For the industry, the competition in the display industry has also shifted from the screen to the chip, so the Hisense 8K AI picture quality chip is the inevitable result of the rolling wheel of the industry trend. When the fifth generation of AI quality chips was released, Yu Zhitao once again emphasized that picture quality and chips are the tracks that the industry needs to be clear in the past and future. Echoing what Hisense wants is Sony, Sony China Chairman Yotsuhashi Takahashi has said more than once: "The chip is the fundamental decision of TV picture quality." ”
What is the killer of the fifth generation of AI quality chips
At present, only Sony and Hisense have independent chip manufacturing capabilities for TV brands in the world, and in addition, chips such as MediaTek and AMD are provided to TV manufacturers that do not have chip manufacturing. In the author's opinion, the use of chip TV new products provided by chip manufacturing giants such as MediaTek can not fall behind in the mainstream display of television, but it is inevitable that there will be a sense of "assimilation". Yu Heng, head of Hisense chip display, also said in an interview: Many TV factories are based on such a homogeneous SOC for the research and development of corresponding products, which eventually leads to the fact that the TV made has no differentiated competitiveness.
As mentioned above, under the trend of large screens, 8K resolution can greatly improve the lack of detail caused by the expansion of the display, and the 8K AI picture quality chip released by Hisense this time supports the accurate reconstruction of 33 million + pixels, which can easily show the rich hidden details in the picture. 8K is not only to serve 8K TV, but to reconstruct and improve all pictures and improve the details of the picture display under the premise of the same picture size. With the highest support of the 26880 partition backlight control, it can show the ultimate picture contrast, making the light and dark parts of the picture more layered, and the overall sensory experience is more shocking and realistic.
In terms of color control, Hisense 8K AI quality chip supports 48bit color depth, 7897 color dot control, which can bring accurate color improvement, and the "scene automatic optimization" that AI picture quality chip is best at is also proficient in this 8K TV chip. Hisense 8K AI quality chip can use the cutting-edge technology of AI scene and object detection to match each frame of the picture and the picture of different scenes with the most realistic color optimization.
As for the hot game scenes in these two years, Hisense's 8K AI picture quality chip is also super mainstream. In terms of the performance of picture fluency, this chip continues the historical advantages of Hisense picture quality chips, through strong computing power, it has realized 8K 120Hz motion clarity compensation, and the high-speed motion picture bids farewell to stuttering, tailing, and more smooth and silky. Hisense 8K AI quality chip greatly improves the perception quality of video sources through a series of intelligent processing, well realizes the adaptation of ultra-high-definition display devices, and greatly improves the user's visual experience.
In addition, Hisense picture quality chips can maintain dynamic update iterations while each generation of new products are in line with the main theme of the times. Mei Jianping, director of the Data Application Department of the Central Radio Station, said: In order to better understand the background of the economic and trade obstruction environment, the successful research and development of Hisense 8K AI picture quality chips has drawn a successful end to the key task research and development of "core component research and development" for the final year of the "Ultra-high-definition Video Industry Development Action Plan (2019-2022)". What is even more valuable is that Hisense 8K AI quality chip will quickly show its value in more directions in real-world applications.
At the same time, Yu Heng also said: "The 8K AI processing chip is not only applied to the consumer's display scene, such as the CCTV monitor and medical display, etc., we also provide such a picture quality fidelity such a tuned processing scheme." It is reported that the 2022 Winter Olympics will be broadcast in 8K resolution for the first time. In view of the long-term technical cooperation between Hisense and CCTV, the development of monitor products in the studio is led by Hisense, breaking the monopoly of Japanese and Korean manufacturers in the field of monitors in the past. It is believed that with the release of China's first fully self-developed 8K AI picture quality chip by Hisense, it will store energy for industrial development and help the ultra-high-definition video industry run out of "China speed".
Summary: Although the chip is only a small piece, the author believes that this chip has three pivotal significances for the industry.
First, such as: the soaring price of the upstream panel has led to the price increase of the color TV industry, or the lack of chips is in the inferior position in foreign cooperation, which is a common embarrassment in recent years. Therefore, for the color TV industry, if you want to stand out in the fierce competition and sit firmly in Taishan in the unpredictable environment, you must either master the "right to speak the screen" or master the "right to speak the core language". Hisense's achievements in TV chips will definitely be the basis for The future competition between China's color TV industry and foreign giants Such as Sony and Samsung.
Second, a big reason why the color TV industry will experience a long price war is that there is no breakthrough, the homogenization phenomenon is serious, and consumers can only rely on the reserve price to attract consumers to occupy the market. In the future, under the general trend of the color TV industry such as large screen and 8K, if the company is still purchasing panels and purchasing chips to assemble into machines, the price war trend may come again after the market is saturated. Hisense's move is enough to provide a sample of how the color TV industry develops.
Third, shoulder certain social responsibilities. As mentioned earlier, 8K has a significant role in medical, sports, and even education. The 8K AI picture quality processing chip independently developed by Hisense also has a great effect on the acceleration of the industry, and the integration of 8K and display technology in various scenarios such as medical and sports can accelerate the landing of 8K display.
Of course, As one of the very few companies in the world that really has its own picture quality processing chip solution, Hisense also has the ability to integrate the whole industry chain on the basis of picture quality chips. According to Yu Heng, it is not enough to do a good TV with a chip, because the display is the support of the entire industry chain, such as backlight modules, multi-image quality tuning technology, and laser TVs like Hisense, so Hisense itself also has a lot of research and development achievements in display devices.
The birth of this 8K AI picture quality chip is not limited to the TV category. The future must be the era of 8K ubiquitous, the current Hisense LCD, laser TV has 8K chip blessing, the future will also have 8K commercial display large screen, 8K medical professional display, and 8K monitoring display products cooperated with Yangguang and other unlimited application scenarios. 8KAI picture quality chips give Hisense a head start in diversified application scenarios outside the TV industry. It is foreseeable that the breakthrough of this pan-display field chip from 0 to 1 allows Hisense to have the qualification to compete with international giants in the wider display field, and in the future, China's cutting-edge display technology field will no longer be "subject to people"!