Lao Mai received a task to talk to everyone about how mobile phone chips determine the performance and experience of smart phones? After studying a bunch of information, I found that if I directly popularized these technical terms and analyzed the principles and functions of modems, GPUs, AI, ISPs, and CPUs, it is estimated that everyone would not be able to read them for a long time. Suddenly remembering that my old profession is medicine, I know more about the anatomy of the human body, so I will use the analogy of the human body structure to tell you about the relationship between chips and smart phones.
▍ Chip is the brain + nerves
Probably in most people's cognition, the chip generally represents the CPU.
Because of the traditional PC era, the computer chassis has enough space, each module is independently separated, and the CPU, graphics card, and network card are all safe. But in the era of smartphones, everything had to be compressed to square inches, and the chip changed dramatically, from a single processor to a system-on-chip SoC ( System on Chip ) .
Taking Snapdragon 8 as an example, in addition to the CPU for general-purpose computing and the GPU responsible for general-purpose programming, the flagship mobile SoC also contains some dedicated programming units, such as DSP, AI engine, etc., and also includes more signal processing units, such as ISP image signal processors responsible for image processing, VPU video processing units, DPU display processing units, and APU audio processing units. Not only that, the SoC module is also expanding and extending to accommodate network communication, charging management and other functions of operation and management. This high level of integration also leads to faster data flow and coordinated management.
If the mobile phone is likened to a person, the chip is the brain and nervous system, responsible for collecting and coordinating the information of each sensor, integrating operations, analysis and response. Whether a person is smart or not is also increasingly dependent on the ability of the entire SoC to improve. Otherwise, no matter how many cameras and larger sensors are used, it will not make practical sense. Smartphones have also long passed the era of heap peripheral hardware, and have focused more on chip integration and algorithm optimization. Here we have to admit that in the Android mobile phone camp, Qualcomm has been dominating the development of high-end SoCs, and next, we continue to use the method of anthropomorphic comparison to see what surprises the Snapdragon 8 will bring.
▍ Give you a stronger pair of eyes
There is an old saying that the eyes are the windows of the soul, and if the mind is not strong enough, first look at the eyes clear enough. Therefore, today's flagship mobile phones are fighting image capabilities, because in addition to taking photos and recordings, cameras are also important information entrances, scanning codes, and even participating in the recognition of biometric information, indirectly determining your use experience.
In order to facilitate everyone's understanding, we continue to use the principle of the human eye to popularize the process of mobile phone imaging. The external lens is equal to the cornea of the eye, the CMOS is equal to the retina, the ISP image signal processor is the cerebral cortex responsible for visual information processing in the brain, and the AI algorithm chip is the middle cortex that processes details. The complex collaboration between them completes the photos and videos we see, so how can the underlying capabilities of the "eye" be enhanced? You need to start from the following aspects.
Increase the optic nerve and let you see more information
The Snapdragon 8 increases the ISP's data capture capabilities from 14-bit to 18-bit, which can be understood as retinal enhancement. It currently images 3.2 billion pixels per second, processes 9 billion pixels in real time, and captures 108 million pixels with a single camera. What is the concept of this pile of parameters? Back to your photo experience, it is faster to take pictures, capture moving objects more clearly, press the shutter once, you can get 30 picture information, leaving enough space for post-image processing.
With more information, more computing power is needed, and the Snapdragon 8 Series mobile platform has been upgraded from the previous dual ISP to the three ISPs supported by the Snapdragon 8. With the ability of 18-Bit three ISPs to coordinate and concurrency, the mobile phone equipped with Snapdragon 8 can make multi-main camera fusion photography, that is to say, when you take a photo, not only according to the user's needs to switch the main camera or wide-angle lens, but automatically call the advantages of different lenses, shooting at the same time, while optimizing, to improve the clarity of the photo, picture details, repair potential distortion, noise and other defects. For example, the ultra-wide-angle photo taken by honor mobile phone in the picture above, although the indoor light is very unsatisfactory, the photo is also very clear and delicate.
Increase the computing power and make analysis synthesis faster
In addition, the implementation of the three ISPs can also support the super multi-frame engine, so that the number of synthetic photos taken by the mobile phone is increased from 6 to 30, which is equivalent to a scene picture, the original show you 6 times, now 30 times, then the information in your brain is definitely more abundant and accurate. Especially in terms of face details, it can be better recognized and optimized, and the natural beauty of the portrait can be improved. This is different from simple beauty, but deep learning and understanding.
This photo is a close-up of the cat captured after the five-fold zoom, and the indoor light is not enough, the background is chaotic, the camera AI can not only identify the cat, and carry out targeted optimization, more clearly show the details of the hair, to the greatest extent to ensure the film effect.
▍ Computing power is IQ, algorithm is emotional intelligence
IQ mainly reflects people's observation ability and computing ability, just like the computing power of ISP. Emotional intelligence mainly reflects the ability to understand, use, control and adjust, which is just like the understanding and application of AI chips.
The application of this ability is also very common, the most direct is the effect of background bokeh, because the space of the mobile phone is extremely limited, so it is impossible to achieve the optical bokeh of the traditional camera, but we also hope that the mobile phone photography can get a better spatial level, which can highlight the powerful role of the AI hardware unit integrated on the mobile phone SoC. Especially when shooting video, real-time computing power is more tested. Snapdragon 8's 7th generation Qualcomm AI engine, composed of Hexagon processor, tensor accelerator, DSP, and own memory, is equivalent to another auxiliary brain, bringing users a smarter image shooting experience.
To this end, I also specially took the Honor Magic 4 to shoot the night scene, the ability of the AI engine is presented in complex night scenes, dark light, long-distance shooting and other situations, and the final realization is that the user can easily produce the film, to ensure the clear quality at the same time, the color accuracy rate is greatly improved.
▍ Not only smarter, but also more loyal
Through the above analysis, you can feel the IQ and emotional intelligence level of Snapdragon 8, but as a smart phone that serves us, it accompanies us for more than 8 hours a day and holds a large amount of our important personal privacy data, and security has become a new topic.
Data encryption at the internal chip layer
Everyone has always thought that mobile phone security lies only in software systems, but Snapdragon 8 has introduced security features into chip hardware systems. For example, under the Android operating system, a deep protection layer has been introduced - Qualcomm Hypervisor, which is tasked with isolating and protecting the data of each application and service to avoid the data of application A from being maliciously retrieved by application B. Hardware-like sandboxing mechanism.
This year, Snapdragon has added another layer of Trust Management Engine under Hypervisor. It's a root-of-trust that ensures proper isolation of the most sensitive data and applications within the Snapdragon platform. The newly released Honor Magic4 series is a deep use of snapdragon's security features, becoming the first smartphone to support a dual TEE system, at the chip layer and system layer, for personal biological and transaction information, to achieve absolute local storage, cross-authentication and protection.
Safety innovations for external sensors
With the underlying security is not enough, there are many scenes of information leakage every day, such as missing calls.
Mobile phone earpiece is a speaker, open sound waves may be eavesdropped and recorded, on the Honor Magic 4, through the adjustment of the speaker, let the dual units coordinate sound, Honor and Qualcomm joint debugging, through low latency to achieve dual-unit collaborative sound, to achieve privacy call function. These two capabilities are very important for business elites and are also the capabilities that smartphones must have in the future.
▍ Re-recognize the value of chips
From the original performance running score, to today's SoC system on chip, although most users buy mobile phones, have not paid much attention to the parameters, because the basic computing power is enough, but the chip is becoming more important, when you really use it for a long time, you will find the difference in experience, and with the penetration of smart phones, any experience details, may bring great contrast, if the mobile phone is an extension of the human limb, then the chip determines how strong your expansion ability.
Qualcomm started from the mobile phone communication standard, from the mobile phone communication chip to the smart phone era, becoming the best choice for flagship mobile phone chips in the era of smart phones. At the same time, it is driving changes in our digital lives at the bottom, and these changes are not only in smartphones, but also in your smart cars, your entrance to the virtual world, and even the entire era of artificial intelligence in the future.