Dual-core has become a new trend in smartphones, how can vivo and MediaTek work together to shape a differentiated experience?

As various mobile phone manufacturers have begun to launch self-developed chips for imaging and image processing, and smart phones have begun to enter the "dual core" era from the original SoC alone, MediaTek has made strategic preparations in the face of this new wave. Among many terminal manufacturers, vivo is one of the first players to lay out "dual core" technology, and the two chips in the mobile phone want to play a complete role, in addition to the self-developed chip technology of mobile phone manufacturers, it is also inseparable from the support of SoC solution providers like MediaTek.

Zhang Genghao, product planning director of MediaTek's wireless communication division, said in an interview with Titanium Media App: "Tianji's open architecture allows terminals or third parties to fully explore the potential of Tianji's flagship platform, not only interfaces, in the future, we will also collaborate and deepen cooperation with customers to jointly explore how to create an innovative differentiated and personalized experience." ”

1+1>2 through open architecture

In the flagship new X80 series just released by vivo, it can be seen that the current "dual core" has become an important part of each company's technology strategy, and its release of X80 and X80 Pro Tianji 9000 editions have adopted the combination of Tianji 9000 and V1+ chips. In fact, as early as last year's vivo X70 conference, vivo released the brand's first self-developed image chip V1, which took 2 years to polish the product, and officially opened a new way of playing the image track: chip + sensor + algorithm full link enhancement system.

The new generation of self-developed chip vivo V1+, in terms of image and game performance, it has further improved compared with the previous generation of V1. "In the vivo X80 series, in addition to the V1+, another focus that has attracted everyone's attention is the Tianji 9000. This time, vivo and MediaTek established the goal of becoming the king of Tianji 9000 at the beginning of the cooperation and creating a new generation of flagship benchmark products. Yang Qing, product manager of vivo X series, said.

The evolution of smart phones from single core to double core, the biggest difficulty lies in the coordination work behind it, if by analogy, the task handled by mobile phones is like the dishes produced in the kitchen. In the past, one chef (Tianji 9000) did all the work, and now there are two chefs (Tianji 9000 and V1+), if the communication is not good, the two chefs will grab the stove, grab the pot, grab the ingredients, and even put two condiments on a dish, and the final result is that the salary (power consumption) is more expensive, and the efficiency is reduced.

According to the performance list of Android flagship mobile phones released by Antutu in April, the vivo X80 equipped with Tianji 9000 entered the top five, which also well illustrates the strength of X80 dual-core technology. The in-depth cooperation between vivo and MediaTek is also the focus of the two-core system to bring experience upgrades, Li Junnan, technical planning director of MediaTek's wireless communication division, said: "Tianji open architecture has been working hard since our first-generation flagship Tianji 1000. Tianji open architecture has a feature, that is, it will be forward compatible, so vivo can continue to optimize on the open architecture and strengthen the functions of the previous generation. ”

In addition, based on the latest flagship chip, he also added, "This time in the flagship display technology, Tianji 9000 open architecture we have added the display link screen high-precision calibration hardware, combined with vivo's newly developed calibration algorithm, in the display link to achieve low power consumption, super flagship level of thousands of screens one color performance." ”

Secondly, in terms of the depth of cooperation, vivo and MediaTek have realized multi-level joint research and development from the underlying hardware to software, including performance, AI, imaging, games, communications and multimedia and other fields, this kind of tuning logic from the bottom can better cope with the complex application scenarios of smart phones and achieve comprehensive coverage of the daily experience.

The R&D process touches the underlying optimization, and often the technical teams of both sides establish a close cooperative relationship when the product is established, which not only requires manpower and time, but also requires full trust and tacit understanding between the teams. From the previous debut of the Tianji 1100 to the current first dual-core model to use MediaTek Tianji 9000, these have demonstrated the deep cooperation experience between vivo and MediaTek.

The author noted that in the interview, whether it is vivo or the person in charge of MediaTek, both mentioned a word "tuning", and this is also the key to the final 1+1>2 under the current dual-core technology trend, for MediaTek, in addition to open architecture and teamwork, its own R & D technology strength and open cooperation in the chip field have accumulated for many years and the strategic thinking of open cooperation, which is the fuel to promote mobile phone manufacturers to promote experience innovation.

Chip potential energy has become more and more obvious

After the mobile phone enters the era of intelligence, every innovation is often driven by software and hardware, in which hardware often plays the role of the forerunner, while software is the user-side perception landing by integrating new experience scenarios after hardware innovation. Looking back at several innovations in recent years: high brushes, lenses, 5G, folding structures, all from the screen, lens, optical structure, chip as a starting point.

However, in the case of hardware as the basis of experience, it is also easy to cause the final form of convergence, and as a very competitive image track in recent years, it is becoming more and more difficult to make a differentiated experience after customizing CMOS, optical structures and even coating upgrades. Therefore, many mobile phone manufacturers like vivo have chosen the path of chip technology, and this will also become a trend in the future.

In addition to the empowerment in terms of imagery, the V1+ chip will also be functional in the game scene, according to Yang Qing: "We use the AI computing power of mediaTek APU to work together with multiple internal and external processors, and work together with the GPU to complete the game's screen rendering, thereby releasing part of the GPU's load." At the same time, by calling the hardware and interpolation algorithm of the self-developed chip V1+, the stability of the frame rate is optimized, and the two swords are combined, and finally the effect of our performance and power balance is achieved. ”

This way of using two chips to output at the same time in some application scenarios will also provide more possibilities for future applications of mobile phones, such as two chips working at the same time when taking pictures, thus forming a dual workflow, so that the display and photography images are completely separated, thus bringing faster response speed and no delay playback experience during the photo process, it can be said that the dual core is also an important basis for future smart phones to provide application innovation.

Zhang Genghao, director of product planning at MediaTek's wireless communication division, also expressed the same view: "For the development of the entire industry, this (dual-core technology strategy) is quite positive, and we hope to make performance and experience that are really different and really make end consumers feel." We have the opportunity to explore more possibilities with terminal manufacturers and make progress together, which has a substantial innovative significance and results for us or for manufacturers and even for the entire industry. ”

For the entire smartphone industry, it is currently walking at another crossroads in technological development, including breakthroughs in forms such as folding, as well as performance revolutions brought about by process and architectural innovations, and accompanied by the unique experience brought about by hardware customization of subdivision scenarios.

As one of the top three mobile phone manufacturers in China, vivo naturally hopes to be able to use the release of the X80 series and the continuous deepening of the "dual core" strategy to achieve the strength leadership in smart phone imaging, games and other experience scenarios, and use product power and technology to promote the brand to achieve upgrading. MediaTek's technology accumulation on flagship SoCs in recent years has also begun to show competitiveness from the Tianji 1000 series, and today's Tianji 9000 also needs to jointly create flagship products with terminal manufacturers to prove it.

As Chen Guanzhou, general manager of MediaTek, said in his speech at the dual-core communication meeting: "MediaTek will continue to carry out more in-depth cooperation with vivo in the flagship field, realize multi-dimensional and multi-level joint research and development from the underlying hardware to software, upgrade the differentiated experience of flagship terminals from performance, AI, imaging, games, communications, multimedia and other fields, and work together to become the "flagship remodeler" of the market and industry." ”

From this point of view, 2022 can be said to be a year of faster development of dual-core technology, which not only represents the drastic innovation of mobile phone technology, but also confirms the deepening cooperation between mobile phone manufacturers and chip manufacturers, and "dual core" is a key step for the future mobile phone industry to achieve a comprehensive breakthrough. (This article was first published on Titanium Media App, author/Deng Jianyun, editor/Zhong Yi)