7nm belongs to the high-end chip process, and it is also the goal of domestic manufacturers. TSMC and Samsung can achieve mass production of 7nm chips, while Chinese mainland SMIC can only mass produce 14nm.
However, in terms of product research and development, domestic manufacturers have broken through 7nm, such as the "Dragon Eagle No. 1" chip developed by Xinqing Technology, which belongs to the 7nm process. After the breakthrough of 7nm chip technology, a strange phenomenon quietly emerged.
The mainstream products in the high-end chip market have been dominated by American companies, Qualcomm's mobile SOC, NVIDIA's GPU and Intel's CPU, which have a high reputation and influence in the industry, and most of the processes used are 7nm and below.
Just like Qualcomm's new generation of Snapdragon 7+ platform, the 4nm process is used. Domestic manufacturers are also accelerating the development of chip products, which can currently achieve the level of 7nm to 5nm.
The relevant representative chips are Xinqing Technology 7nm "Dragon Eagle No. 1", Unigroup Zhanrui 6nm T820, Alibaba 5nm Yitian 710 and so on. Further down 4nm, there are no product launches yet.
In short, domestic manufacturers have the ability to develop 7nm and below chips, but with the breakthrough of domestic manufacturers' 7nm chip technology, a strange phenomenon quietly emerged. This phenomenon is that the domestic 7nm chip has not caused much repercussions.
7nm is already a high-end process, breakthrough is undoubtedly good news, related products are often released after thunder, rain is small.
Not only has it not been widely popularized in the market, but over time, everyone has basically forgotten the existence of this chip. In other words, how the market should be, or how it should be, has not overturned the situation in which the US chip giants dominate the market.
Is it because domestic 7nm chips are inferior to foreign products? Not. Domestic 7nm chip products also have top configuration, take Xinqing Technology's "Dragon Eagle No. 1", this chip is the first domestic 7nm automotive-grade intelligent cockpit chip, "Dragon Eagle No. 1" integrates 8.8 billion transistors, belonging to ultra-large SOC chips.
The measured performance of "Dragon Eagle One" has reached the international mainstream level, and compared with Qualcomm Snapdragon 8155, it is still not lagging behind in some aspects.
Dragon Eagle No. 1 and Snapdragon 8155 both use 7nm process, and the Snapdragon 8155 is currently used by dozens of domestic car companies, and there are countless intelligent car models equipped with them. Car companies will carry the Snapdragon 8155 as a selling point for publicity, and strive to highlight what kind of performance improvement the use of this chip has and what kind of intelligent and digital experience it can bring.
On the other hand, Longyun No. 1, tape-out in June 2021, mass production in the second half of last year, until this year, domestic car companies have officially announced that there are only a handful of Dragon Eagle No. 1.
Some people may say that the reputation of Dragon Eagle One has not yet been hit, and it still needs time to be recognized by the market. It cannot be ruled out that there are reasons for this, after all, the Snapdragon 8155 did go on the market earlier. But if it is only a matter of time to market, it will only affect the market share, not the attitude of domestic car companies to the official announcement of the Dragon Eagle No. 1.
After Xinqing Technology launched the Dragon Eagle No. 1, domestic car companies can fully cooperate in advance, book chips in advance, and announce the launch plan of the Dragon Eagle No. 1 chip model.
But there is not much news about this, which probably shows that domestic car companies pay different attention to the Dragon Eagle No. 1 and the Snapdragon 8155. This is exactly the strange phenomenon after the domestic breakthrough of 7nm, in the case of the product is not lost to foreign manufacturers, market customers still choose other people's products. There are two reasons for this phenomenon.
The first is that the concept of domestic manufacturers towards domestic chips has not been reversed.
American chip companies have been operating in the Chinese market for decades and have close cooperation with major Chinese customers, so it has become a habit to choose chips from foreign suppliers.
The other party has advanced technology products, there is no reason to give up. Although domestic chip suppliers have also broken through the corresponding technical products, they have not yet reversed the concept of domestic manufacturers towards domestic chips, and in the eyes of market customers, domestic chips still cannot reach the level of foreign countries, and they have lost the willingness to try.
Secondly, the release time of domestic chips is limited, and there is a gap between production capacity supply and foreign countries.
In addition to subjective factors, objectively speaking, the release time of domestic chips is limited, and some breakthroughs in 7nm chip products have only occurred in recent years. From tape-out to sample delivery, to mass production and planning to market, every stage of development takes time.
It can range from a few months to a year and a half. It took a year and a half for the Dragon Eagle No. 1 to go from tape-out to mass production, and it is estimated that it will take about half a year after waiting for the Dragon Eagle One to have sufficient production capacity. Therefore, there is a gap with foreign countries in terms of capacity supply, since there is no sufficient production capacity and customers are not willing to wait, they can only choose foreign suppliers to cooperate.
In fact, whether it is subjective or objective factors, it proves that domestic chips still have a lot of room for improvement.
It is not enough to release a product, it is the most important thing to be recognized by the market and gain the favor of consumers. Otherwise, no matter how good the chip is, it cannot be commercialized on a large scale, and it is meaningless, and it is hoped that domestic chip manufacturers will continue to work hard and accumulate.
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