Recently, OPPO announced the complete termination of the business of its chip design company ZEKU Technology (ZEKU), which attracted the attention of the whole network. Recently, Dr. Nhon Quach, whose profile is a senior member of IEEE, chief SoC architect of Zheku Technology and Fellow, released information through Linkedin, exposing some details of Zheku Technology's research and development of high-end SoC chips for smartphones, and said that Zheku Technology's second-generation SoC architecture/design team basically completed the relevant work in less than 10 months before Zheku was closed.
Nhon Quach said, "We were given the task (time and money) of 7 years to build high-end chipsets for high-end flagship phones. The first generation of SoCs based on the N4P process was built from the ground up and successfully rolled off the line within 2.5 years. With the exception of a few inefficiencies and edge issues, the first generation of SoCs achieved most of their performance goals and feature sets. In any case, this is a remarkable achievement. Last year, I was fortunate enough to be recruited and worked on the creation of a team of dynamic architects/design engineers in the United States and China to create the second generation SoCs. ”
According to reports, when developing the second-generation SoC, the team worked 16 hours a day almost every day, carefully studied a large amount of competitive analysis data and a large number of requirements/use cases, and the architecture/design team completed a highly competitive architecture (Gen2) in more than 4 months, and completed the signing of the performance/feature set within 6 months. Building on the success of the first-generation SoC, the second-generation SoC based on TSMC's N3P process should be able to roll off the assembly line by the first quarter of 2024.
According to Nhon Quach, the second-generation SoCs have eye-popping features (e.g., the latest Arm Cortex-X series CPU cores and the latest GPU cores, rich CPU L1/2 cache and huge L3/SLC cache, sub-100ns DDR latency, asynchronous MTE, AI DVFS/FI/SR), and are powered by a series of efficient internal custom IP (NOC/SMMU/SNOOP FILTER/MTE/COMPRESSION ENGINE/ secure enclave/DMC/PMU) provides the power, which generates a lot of excitement internally and will present a huge challenge for competitors when it launches in 2025.
Obviously, if the above information is true, then Zheku Technology's original plan is to build the SoC required for its high-end flagship mobile phone within 7 years. Before the shutdown, the first generation of SoCs was already tape-out, and the design of the second generation SoC was nearing completion. Although Zheku Technology lacks the accumulation of mobile phone baseband chips, Xinzhixun's previous reports show that Zheku Technology was originally ready to cooperate with MediaTek and adopt a self-developed AP+ plug-in MediaTek 5G baseband solution.
(Previous related article "How much money did Zheku "burn" in three years?") Why was it abandoned? The salary estimate in the article may be low, the salary of overseas R&D teams will be higher than that of China, plus the second generation of 3nm SoC projects need to add additional IP fees, after recalculation, it should not exceed 15 billion yuan. ）
But unfortunately, OPPO has closed the Zheku, which also makes two generations of self-developed SoCs come to an end.
Nhon Quach also said: "I personally learned three things from this experience: (1) with enough resources and the right team, it is possible to build a high-end mobile SoC in less time that most people think; (2) Under a tight schedule, teamwork and motivation are everything. It's amazing to work with a team where everyone is motivated and focused on building the best product possible; (3) Contrary to popular belief, Chinese architects/designers are equally creative and capable. ”
"After OPPO announced the closure of Zheku, many people asked me if I regretted joining Zheku. My answer is no. I worked on such a meaningful project with such a great team and had the best time of my career. I will do it again anytime. Nhon Quech said with great regret.
Finally, Nhon Quach also hopes that a company will hire Zheku's R&D members in Pato Alto, San Diego and Austin.
According to Dr. Nhon Quach's previous work resume published on Linkdein, before joining Zheku Technology in August 2022, he served as the founder, CEO/CTO of Abee Semiconductor, Microsoft AI and senior architect, and chief system architect of Amazon Labs.
Editor: Xinzhixun - Ronin Sword