Ten years later, Qualcomm and MTK finally put pressure on Apple
Wisdom Stuff (Public Number: Zhidxcom)
Author | Yunpeng
Edit the | Heart
At the end of 2022, the release of two flagship mobile phone chips, Qualcomm's second-generation Snapdragon 8 and MediaTek Dimensity 9200, has changed many consumers' inherent cognition of "Android chips" to a certain extent.
Some of the performance of Android mobile phone chips caught up with and surpassed Apple's latest A16 chip in the same year, and also achieved a considerable lead in the "energy efficiency ratio" that Apple has rarely rivaled.
According to media measured data, in terms of GPU, the peak energy efficiency of the second-generation Snapdragon 8 is still relatively obvious compared to Apple's A16, and MediaTek Dimensity 9200 is also higher than A16 in GPU peak performance, but the power consumption is relatively high.
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▲The GPU load energy efficiency curve and energy efficiency point of each flagship mobile phone chip (the top white curve is the second-generation Snapdragon 8, the green dot is Apple A16, and the red dot is Dimensity 9200), source: Geek Bay
Although there is still a gap between the two and A16 in CPU theoretical performance, in the actual performance of games that test the overall performance of CPU and GPU, the power consumption performance of the second-generation Snapdragon 8 is very close to that of Apple A16, for example, in the "Genshin" game test, the power consumption of the second-generation Snapdragon 8 and A16 is about 5W.
In 2012, Apple A6 established the dominance of mobile chips, and Qualcomm MediaTek maintained a trend of catching up for ten years, and the two Android chip giants finally caught up. Previously, due to the excessive performance lead, Apple's A-series chips have been ridiculed by many people as "alien technology", and today, Apple also has a sense of urgency.
Therefore, it is not an exaggeration to say that 2022 is a "milestone" year for Android mobile phone chips. More than ten years into the era of smartphones, Apple's A-series chips were surpassed by Android chips for the first time.
Behind the counterattack of Qualcomm and MediaTek mobile phone chips against Apple, from catching up to overtaking, how have today's results been achieved step by step, and at the core technology level, what key points have they grasped? In the face of the rise of these two old friends, can Apple regain its former leading position and solve the chip team's "internal and external troubles"?
Today, when smart phone technology innovation is becoming more and more weak, the competition of top mobile phone chips may still be the biggest attraction.
First, from "fire dragon" to "god U", there may be only a matter of "a few nanometers"
Looking through various comparative tests on the second-generation Snapdragon 8, Dimensity 9200 and A16, the word that appears most frequently is "energy efficiency ratio". Indeed, in today's competition between mobile chips and even the entire chip track, energy efficiency ratio has become a top priority.
In the PC field, NVIDIA's GeForce RTX 4090 GPU achieves up to 2-3 times the increase in gaming performance while consuming essentially the same power as the previous generation flagship. The two flagship chips of Qualcomm and MediaTek have almost improved the energy efficiency ratio of their GPUs by nearly 50%.
Looking closely at these chips with excellent energy efficiency ratio, they have all made important upgrades in process technology and chip architecture, which is also the key point for Qualcomm and MediaTek chips to achieve a counterattack.
1. After planting and eating sweetness, chip giants and processes and architectures love and kill each other
For a long time, the progress of semiconductor chip process technology has been a key factor to promote chip performance, and chip architecture improvement is more a test of the designer's own skills, but also an indispensable part of improving chip performance.
How important are processes and architectures to chips? From the perspective of Qualcomm's "planted heels" and "sweeteners" in terms of process and architecture, we can already know a little about it.
For example, when it comes to Qualcomm's losses in the chip process, many people will think of the word "fire dragon". Since the advent of Qualcomm's first "Snapdragon" processor in 2007, "Fire Dragon" has been used to describe Qualcomm's Snapdragon chip that "rolls over" in terms of power consumption.
In 2013, Apple released the first 64-bit mobile phone chip A7, which directly doubled the performance, and the "multi-core" strategy of MediaTek chips has also achieved certain results.
Under various external pressures, Qualcomm chose to make a radical attempt in 2014, upgraded the CPU from 4 cores to 8 cores, and chose to directly adopt the Arm public version architecture, without using self-developed architecture, and the GPU specifications were also greatly upgraded, and finally made the Snapdragon 810 chip.
At that time, TSMC's 20nm process performance seemed unable to support such a luxurious "stack", and after the final mass production, the calorific value of the Snapdragon 810 was very amazing, and the single-core power consumption of its A57 large core could even reach 5W. For comparison, the peak power consumption of the entire Apple A7 chip in daily use at that time was only about 5W.
At that time, Xiaomi Note top-of-the-line version, LeEco super mobile phone 1Pro and Max, Sony Xperia Z4, and HTC one M9 and other models all used this chip.
The original "Fire Dragon" 810 became the common memory of many mobile phone manufacturers and consumers at that time.
The following year, Qualcomm hurriedly changed the Arm public version architecture to the self-developed Kryo 64-bit CPU architecture, the CPU returned to 4 cores, and at the same time turned to cooperate with Samsung, using Samsung's 14nm FinFET process to launch the Snapdragon 820. But I don't know if it was a major change in the architecture process at the same time, coupled with the general poor performance of the mobile phone cooling system at that time, the Snapdragon 820 still performed poorly in terms of power consumption, and was once known as the "second-generation fire dragon".
In 2020, the Snapdragon 888 using Samsung's 5nm process has greatly increased its CPU and GPU power consumption. On the contrary, the MediaTek Dimensity 8100, which also used the A78 architecture at the same time, used TSMC's 5nm process, and the energy efficiency ratio performance was very good, and it was even called "a generation of god U".
Similar to the Snapdragon 888, the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 released in 2021 and the MediaTek Dimensity 9000 use almost the same CPU architecture, in terms of process selection, the Snapdragon 8 uses the Samsung 4nm process, while the Dimensity 9000 uses the TSMC 4nm process. In the end, the Snapdragon 8 turned over in terms of power consumption and took over the mantle of "Fire Dragon".
Of course, when there is a rollover, there is a time when it goes right, and when it gains advantages in architecture and technology, Qualcomm's generation of chips will often be "sealed gods".
For example, on the 10nm node where Samsung processes have obvious advantages, the Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 in 2016 "magically" the A73 and A53 architectures of Arm into its own Kryo large and small core architecture on the basis of the Samsung process, combined with the advantages of self-research and public versions, achieved a 45% reduction in CPU power consumption. Snapdragon 835 has also become a generation of gods in the hearts of many consumers.
This time against Apple's second-generation Snapdragon 8, on the basis of TSMC's 4nm process iteration, the CPU main large core adjusted to a combination of 2 A715 + 2 A710, and the GPU was "expanded and reduced", achieving a significant reduction in power consumption on the basis of improving overall performance.
Throughout the journey of Qualcomm Snapdragon chips, as long as Qualcomm does not "play with fire" in process and architecture, it seems that it will not overturn. The process and architecture are decisive for the performance of the chip.
2. Win the process, win most of it
Although the upgrade of the process and architecture often occurs at the same time, some people in the industry believe that the upgrade of the process often plays a more critical role, and it can even be said that if you win the process, you will win most of it.
From Qualcomm to MediaTek, on the whole, who can choose the most mature and highest yield process at that time, it seems that most of the success has been successful, winning at the starting line, and choosing TSMC or Samsung has also become a key issue that cannot be avoided throughout the development of mobile phone chips.
In fact, in the early years, Samsung and TSMC played each other in terms of process, not today's "one-sided" situation, such as Apple's original A-series chips were manufactured by Samsung.
Although TSMC began to contact Apple more than ten years ago, the final chip landed on the iPhone, starting with the A8 chip. The iPhone 6 with the A8 chip was also known as Apple's best-selling product, and as of 2019, a total of about 250 million units were shipped.
Apple that tasted the sweetness has a closer relationship with TSMC, and TSMC has also set up a 300-person research and development team specifically for Apple, and the subsequent Apple M1, M2 series chips in the process and production capacity are inseparable from the deep cooperation between the two sides.
In the past two years, Samsung has been stolen by TSMC in the advanced process favored by mobile phone chips, and has also snatched all orders. However, according to industry information, Samsung is working hard to improve yield on the 3nm node, and even its 3nm process has been developed to the second generation.
The battle of mobile phone chip technology has become a competition for chip designers and foundries.
Second, why use advanced technology and the latest architecture? The battle of chip technology is still about talent
Since process and architecture are so important, how can you achieve breakthroughs in these two areas and thus form your own advantages? This is a must-answer question for all chip designers.
For this question, we may be able to get some answers from MediaTek's process of hitting the high-end market.
Since the end of 2019, MediaTek has released the "Dimensity" series of chips for the first time, including Dimensity 1000, Dimensity 800, and Dimensity 700 series, which is the first time that MediaTek officially launched an attack on the high-end market.
Last year, the TSMC process advantages of Dimensity 9000 series and Dimensity 8000 series chips were obvious, and Qualcomm "overturned" because of the Samsung process, MediaTek achieved a reverse in terms of high-end market voice, and many Android manufacturers have released flagship mobile phones equipped with MediaTek chips.
Vivo, one of the top three domestic mobile phones, in its most important annual flagship X90, the main shipment X90 standard version and X90 Pro have adopted MediaTek Dimensity 9200, which is also an important breakthrough for MediaTek in the domestic market.
From Dimensity 1000 to Dimensity 8000 to today's Dimensity 9200, MediaTek has been closely following TSMC's latest technology, and is the first to apply Arm's latest architecture core to its own chips every year.
Behind this, what did MediaTek do?
In fact, the application of advanced technology requires MediaTek to have the corresponding technical capabilities. Today's chip foundry is no longer a simple "fab-lite" foundry, and the manufacture and production of chips requires in-depth cooperation between MediaTek and TSMC.
From market definition to terminal link, both parties need to maintain close communication all the time to achieve the expected results in terms of quality and yield.
Some chip design practitioners have told Zhidong that if you want to use TSMC's latest process, you need the team to test the characteristics of the process in order to have a better grasp, which requires the design team to have excellent middle and back-end capabilities. Being able to use the latest process in your own products in the first time is a matter of threshold.
In addition, today not only chips are doing "customization", chip technology is also developing towards "customization", we often hear the term "customized process" today, which requires chip designers and foundries to cooperate deeply. Even if it all sounds like "4nm", it may vary in actual process performance.
Finally, advanced process capacity is often scarce in the early stage, and after Apple books most of the production capacity in advance, there is not much left for other manufacturers, which also tests whether chip designers and foundries have established a deep and stable cooperative relationship.
When it comes to cooperation, it is essentially people-to-people dealing, and MediaTek chips can keep up with advanced processes, which is inseparable from a series of adjustments by management and talent teams in recent years.
2017 was a key year for MediaTek, with MediaTek's gross profit falling below 40% for the first time in the previous year, and net profit hitting a four-year low. On March 22, 2017, Cai Lixing became MediaTek's "heavenly macho", and served as the CEO and vice president of the group with Cai Mingjie.
▲ Cai Lixing
Since joining TSMC in 1989, he has served as plant director, deputy general manager, executive deputy general manager, and finally president and CEO, known as "Xiao Zhang Zhongmou" in Taiwan's semiconductor industry.
People familiar with the matter said that the addition of Cai Lixing has made the relationship between MediaTek and TSMC more stable in advanced technology. In fact, the delay in the 10nm process of MediaTek chips around 2017 is related to the lack of close collaboration between MediaTek and foundries.
In addition to the process, in terms of architecture, how to use the latest architecture into their own chips, and "tune" and "tune" There are also many challenges, and solving these problems is also inseparable from talents.
Today's mobile phone chips not only include CPUs, GPUs, as "SoCs", but also NPU units responsible for AI computing, ISPs responsible for image processing, modems and RF modules responsible for communication, and so on. Mobile phone chip design is a complex systematic project.
The Arm public version architecture has always been open, but there is no other place to use the public version architecture to make chip performance equal to Qualcomm except MediaTek and Huawei HiSilicon.
In terms of talent team building, the addition of Cai Lixing has brought new changes to the team. After he joined, the MediaTek team began to present a "old, medium and young" situation, and the addition of some new forces also brought various resource advantages.
At the same time, in the list of professional managers of MediaTek, we can see a number of front-end TSMC executives, including the head of the human resources division of the front-end TSMC, the senior project director of the front-end TSMC, in addition, we can also find former executives of Qualcomm and Intel.
Without the teamwork of excellent talents and a large amount of R & D investment, it is impossible to use the latest process and the latest architecture in the chip and deliver it to consumers in the first time, talent is undoubtedly the focus of chip technology competition, which is also clearly reflected in Apple's chip research and development.
Apple was once known for absorbing talent with heavy money, but it was also hindered by brain drain. It can be said that Apple's failure in GPU may have become inevitable from the perspective of turmoil in the R&D team.
Foreign media The Information learned from Apple insiders that Apple originally planned to achieve a "cross-generational leap" in GPU performance on the A16 chip equipped with the iPhone 14 Pro, but the final step was too large, and the process progress was not as expected, resulting in power consumption far exceeding expectations and being forced to give up.
This also laid the groundwork for the performance of Qualcomm and MediaTek chips and GPUs to surpass Apple A16.
Because the performance improvement of the A16 GPU is too small, Apple even reorganized the GPU team. It is understood that in the past three or four years, Apple has had dozens of key talents flow to chip startups and more mature chip companies.
In the foreseeable future, the talent battle between Apple, Qualcomm, MediaTek, and even Intel, Nvidia, AMD and other chip giants will inevitably continue to be staged, and even become more intense.
Third, whether A17 can help Apple regain a city, the chip giant war has come to a new stage
The development of Android mobile phone chips has undoubtedly reached a milestone node, but looking to the future, the battle of mobile phone chips is far from over.
Although Qualcomm surpasses Apple A16 in GPU performance and energy efficiency ratio, in terms of CPU performance, whether it is the second-generation Snapdragon 8 or Dimensity 9200, from the actual test results, the algebra gap is still about 2 generations. In terms of CPU performance, Qualcomm and MediaTek still have a lot of room to catch up.
At the same time, Apple is about to take the lead in mass production of 3nm chips this year, if Apple's chip team adjustment can be completed as soon as possible to return to the right track, the A17 that will meet in the second half of this year is bound to become a blockbuster move for Apple, and it is still unknown whether Qualcomm and MediaTek's new products can continue to maintain the current lead.
Within the Android camp, with Qualcomm's return to TSMC 4nm, in terms of process and process, Qualcomm and MediaTek have stood on the same running line, and the pressure has come to the chip architecture, which is a greater test for the chip design teams of both sides.
For MediaTek, there will be more pressure from further breakthroughs in high-end market share. Although Dimensity 9000 and Dimensity 9200 have helped MediaTek take key steps in the high-end market, Qualcomm still occupies an absolute dominant position in terms of the overall share of the high-end market.
In the Android smartphone market in the price segment above $300, Qualcomm chips account for the first place, and they are significantly ahead of the second place, accounting for more than seventy percent of the multiple high-end price segment markets.
Now MediaTek chips have basically equaled in product performance indicators, but there is still a lot of work to be done in consumer awareness, brand building, marketing and other aspects.
For MediaTek, now they knock on the door of the high-end market, but it is still not easy to really stand in the high-end market and get a sufficient scale of high-end market share.
In addition, the tide of cutting orders by mobile phone manufacturers and the high inventory of chips indicate that the upward pressure from the smartphone market environment still exists and will not be significantly eased in the short term.
Of course, on the positive side, the weakness of the smartphone market in recent years has also stimulated Qualcomm and MediaTek to more actively adjust their business lines, expanding their fronts from smartphones to VR, AR, automotive, Internet of Things and other fields, and these new businesses are gradually branching out, bringing positive feedback on revenue.
In the future era of AI-based Internet of Everything, the focus of the game of chip giants will no longer be limited to a single technology or product, but a kind of "comprehensive competition", which will be more reflected in the ecological game. How to face these new challenges is what every player urgently needs to think about.
Conclusion: In 2023, the mobile phone chip war is still expected
Embrace the latest technology, keep up with the latest architecture, although we try to dig the secret behind the rise of Android chips from two representative points, but behind the counterattack of Qualcomm and MediaTek, there are too many detailed stories that we cannot cover one by one, mobile phone chips are the collection of the most advanced technology in the global technology field, and the "doorway" behind it is by no means a clear statement in two words.
Nowadays, the smartphone market has entered a stage of stock contraction, products are developing towards high-end and high-quality, and manufacturers are focusing more on high-end products with higher profits in the harsh winter. The flagship mobile phone chip war will still be a high-profile contest on the table.
MediaTek ranks first in the total shipment of mobile phone chips, impacting the high-end market, Qualcomm is firmly in the high-end market, actively expanding the low-end, this back and forth, so that the mobile phone chip market is not lively. Apple's performance after "returning blood" is expected, and whether Huawei's 5G chip can return is still full of unknowns.
The future mobile phone chip war is still promising.