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In the self-developed chip team of domestic manufacturers, first-line mobile phone manufacturers have supported half of the sky. Smartphones are the main sales market for chips, and a smartphone needs hundreds of chips, including RF, audio, Bluetooth, baseband and SOC.
Chinese mobile phone manufacturers have carried out self-research projects in different chip fields, some have achieved remarkable results, and some have given up. OPPO has developed two chips by itself, and now officially announced the abandonment of the termination of chip research and development business, some foreign media said: China's core "fig leaf" was torn again.
Perhaps in the eyes of some people, self-developed chips are an easy job, especially in the chip design process. Isn't it just using EDA industrial software to draw chip patterns on the computer? It's not as simple as you think.
This involves a variety of disciplines, including electrical engineering, computer science, physics, mathematics, etc., and requires designers to have solid basic knowledge and professional skills. Specifically, it is also subdivided into market demand analysis, chip layout design, simulation and verification, and circuit design, etc., any link requires a lot of time, manpower and material resources.
In addition, financial support is also essential, and the cost of designing a high-end chip is very high, ranging from tens of millions of dollars to hundreds of millions of dollars.
In the face of these difficulties, domestic manufacturers who want to overcome and persevere one by one are all the pillars of domestic chips. Of course, some domestic manufacturers fell halfway up the mountain and failed to continue, such as OPPO.
According to the news from OPPO, it said that "in the face of the uncertainty of the global economy and mobile phone market, after careful consideration, it was decided to terminate the ZEKU business." ”
ZEKU is OPPO's chip research and development company, OPPO has launched a total of two chips, namely Mariana X and Mariana Y, both by ZEKU. There is industry news that OPPO's third chip has reached the FPGA verification link, and OPPO decided to give up before it reached the tape-out stage.
If OPPO can successfully launch the third chip, regardless of the final performance performance, it is of great significance to the development of domestic chips. As OPPO abandons the self-developed chip project, some foreign media said: The "fig leaf" of China's core has been torn again, which exposes that China's chip self-developed project still has a lot to improve, and there are still many problems to consider.
The first is the question of capital.
Self-developed chips are very money-burning projects. Although the capital investment for chip design is less than that of chip manufacturing, maintaining a large R&D team to carry out projects also requires huge capital strength.
What's more, the smartphone market is not easy to do in recent years, OPPO's chips are used in high-end mobile phones, and the profits of the high-end mobile phone market are taken away by Apple by 85%, and the remaining manufacturers want to divide the rest of the profits, and then feed the chip team This "gold-swallowing beast", which is likely to bring down the entire company.
If the self-developed chip is not profitable, the choice of capital will only stop the loss in time.
The second is the problem of the underlying technology.
Chip design relies heavily on software systems, requires the support of EDA industrial software, and also requires authorization of ARM architecture. Nowadays, the United States is restricting these aspects, and the EDA market is monopolized by three major American companies, Synopsys, Kaideng Electronics and Siemens, and the United States does not allow them to provide high-end EDA technology at will.
ARM's most advanced V9 architecture can't be exported to the Chinese market. Without the support of the underlying technology, it is easy to get stuck in the neck. Domestic manufacturers need to start from the underlying technology and master their own EDA industrial software and architecture technology. But this is not something that can be done overnight, and it will take a long-term effort.
Another is the issue of market competition.
When the chip is hard to make, it must be sold in the consumer market and carried on to the terminal product to provide service protection to consumers. There are so many similar chips on the market, how to win the market competition is a key.
Qualcomm is a mobile terminal chip giant, its Snapdragon chips are all over the models of major mobile phone manufacturers, and Qualcomm also has the operation of tie-in chips, that is, after the purchase of Snapdragon chips, other baseband, Bluetooth and other chips also use Qualcomm.
This has led to Qualcomm's chips occupying a large market share, and it will be difficult for the rest of the chip manufacturers to enter the market. Without market returns, companies will lose their revenue sources, and without revenue, they will not be able to feed the chip R&D team, and finally OPPO will give up self-developed chips. The market competition is too fierce, and the limited share is not enough to support the company to continue to go.
So self-developed chips are not an easy task, and judging from OPPO's decision to abandon self-developed chips, I also know how difficult it is for Huawei. Huawei established HiSilicon Semiconductor, a chip R&D arm, in 2004, and HiSilicon is still insisting on research and development. Huawei has said that as long as it can be raised, it will continue to raise it.
OPPO's abandonment brings a certain warning, and I hope that the public can give more support to domestic manufacturers who are still insisting on self-developed chips.
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