The rapid development of smart phones is not only the rapid development of operating systems and chip technology, but also closely related to the upgrading of baseband chips. If there is no blessing of 5G baseband chips in the 5G era, it is difficult to call it a "true flagship". In fact, at this time, everyone has understood very well that the so-called baseband is similar to the "cat" in the home broadband, which converts the optical signal, electrical signal and digital signal to each other.
And the design difficulty of baseband chips is not under the performance chips, which is why we can see that after entering the 5G era, semiconductor giant Intel gave up the baseband business, and Apple has never had a self-developed baseband chip. In the current mobile phone baseband chip market, the companies that stand out are Huawei, Qualcomm, MediaTek and Samsung. Huawei's Baron is used by its own products, most mobile phone manufacturers, including Apple, use Qualcomm and MediaTek's baseband, and compared with the two, Qualcomm has shown a strong dominance in the baseband market!
According to the data released by third-party research institutions, in the fourth quarter of 2021, in the global baseband chip market shipment ranking, Qualcomm won the throne of the first place with a market share of 76%, while the second place MediaTek only won 18%, which can be said that Qualcomm occupies an absolute leading position in the baseband field. Not only that, the emergence of Qualcomm X70 baseband, not only can reach the downward peak of 10Gbps in the real network environment, but also the FastConnect 7800 connection system is the world's first wifi7 solution, 4nm process process, power consumption has been reduced again.
Why does Qualcomm have an absolute lead in the baseband field?
First of all, Qualcomm and Huawei, in the field of communication research has a high "verticality", 2G, 3G era, Qualcomm has accumulated a large number of communication patents, rich customer resources and financial resources for 4G, 5G patent layout laid the foundation, not only that, Qualcomm chips are also known for high performance, low power consumption, but also because of Qualcomm's technology accumulation in the field of wireless communications and semiconductors, plus the "5G pilot program" launched with domestic mobile phone companies, This has brought a huge impetus to the growth of Qualcomm's baseband business.
Secondly, the support of Huawei and Apple. The so-called hero cherishes the hero, as a communications giant Huawei, itself has the ability to develop baseband chips, but due to the impact of some reasons led to the chip business "shutdown", and Apple's iPhone 12 series, and even the iPhone 13 series are attached to Qualcomm's baseband, iPhone12, iPhone13 series of global hot sales, plus Huawei's entry, directly promoted Qualcomm's position in the baseband chip market.
In addition, Qualcomm's accumulation in millimeter wave technology. The United States is to millimeter wave as the main frequency band of the 5G network, as the American chip giant, Qualcomm naturally has a wealth of practical experience and technical accumulation, and through technical means to break through the inherent shortcomings of 5G millimeter wave, such as through the base station beamforming gain, by improving the power amplifier of the signal source to improve the transmission distance of 5G millimeter wave, the antenna array beamforming, the radio wave energy concentrated to extend the transmission distance of millimeter wave, and also solve the "non-line of sight" transmission problem between the user and the base station. Qualcomm's support and technology accumulation for the 5G millimeter wave band has also become the preferred 5G SOC for mobile phone manufacturers, which has played a crucial role in the internationalization of mobile phone business.
However, Qualcomm's baseband business is not limited to smart phones, and there is still huge room for growth in the future, such as smart cars, fully interconnected PCs, game handhelds that support 5G networks, etc. Every product needs a baseband chip, and Qualcomm has put up a banner in these fields!