Will Huawei leave the U.S. market? How far can the Chinese "core" go?

Huawei doesn't have much market share in the U.S., and figures show that Huawei and glory combined occupy only 0.41 % of the smartphone market. Huawei also said at a recent meeting of its own analysts that the U.S. market is no longer a strategic one for Huawei, which has no interest in the U.S. market, according to the Commerce Department's recent sanctions on Chinese companies.

The recent ZTE incident has awakened countless Chinese people. Chinese companies seem to be prosperous in the field of science and technology, and their basic technology is still in the hands of old technological powers such as the United States, Japan, and Germany. Most of the chips in the smartphone field come from Qualcomm, Mediatek, Intel, and Samsung. In addition to Huawei's Kirin, domestic chips on the market currently lack strong competitiveness.

The Development History of Fine Counting Domestic Chips

When it comes to home-made chipmakers, I'm afraid readers can count on one hand. Nothing more than Huawei's Haisi, Exhibition News and Xiaomi's S1. Globally, mobile chip hegemony is Qualcomm, which represents the highest level of mobile chip companies. It is in the leading position in CPU, GPU, baseband, etc., especially in baseband technology. It has always been the market leader. Qualcomm released the X20 baseband supporting 1.2 Gbps in 2017.

In order to give its own chips a good environment, Xiaomi also set up Beijing Pine Fruit Electronics Co., Ltd.. The Xiaomi Pine Fruit S1 processor developed by Xiaomi was officially unveiled on February 28, 2017. At the beginning of the release, the media touted it as "the light of domestic chips" and "the chip that makes foreigners scream". Okay, well, the small editor of the OFweek Smart Hardware Network will tell you the results of the chips currently developed by Xiaomi's own home: very general.

Due to its positioning at the middle and lower end, the core architecture of the Soaring S1 is subject to the 28nm process. The processor chose the Cortex A53 architecture with a more conventional main energy consumption ratio and adopted the Big.LITTLE size core design. It consists of four high frequency Cortex-A53 cores plus four low frequency Cortex-A53 cores. For the GPU, the S1 choice is ARM, and the specific model is the "sub-flagship"-Mail-T860 in the ARMMali-T800 series.

On the whole, this chip has no lack of features, compatibility is also good, but the overall does not say that compared with Qualcomm, even the domestic Huawei Haisi hit it is more than enough. It is worth noting that on Xiaomi's recently launched Xiaomi 2S mobile phone, the chip is still using the Primus 845 processor, and Xiaomi still has not been able to use its own products on its high-end products.

Compared to Xiaomi, Huawei's Haisi is much safer. In the domestic mobile phone camp, Huawei is the only company that has independent mobile SoC(chip system, integrated CPU, GPU, Modem, ISP, DSP and other chips) core technology. As early as 2012, Huawei first entered the four-core battlefield with the Haisi(40nm process, four-core Cortex-A9 architecture, integrated GC4000GPU, representing products: AxendD1, Mate1, Glory 3, etc.).

At the beginning of 2014, Haisi's new product was officially named "Kirin". Its first generation product, Kirin 910(28nm process, four-core Cortex-A9 architecture, integrated Mali-450MP4GPU, represents products such as P7, Mate2, Glory X1, etc.), There has been great progress in power consumption(heat) and game compatibility.

Why can't we make the chips?

From the perspective of the development of the Internet, the United States has long been firmly controlling the majority of the world's chip market share. Intel, AMS, Qualcomm and other well-known chip manufacturers are basically American companies, as the world's largest electronics manufacturing country and mass consumer market, 2017, China imports more than 200 billion dollars of integrated circuits.

From the perspective of the development of semiconductors, the real development of Chinese semiconductors began in 2000, when China's largest semiconductor manufacturer, SMIC International Integrated Circuit Manufacturing Co., Ltd., was established, but at the beginning of its establishment, it faced the United States International Business Machines Corporation(IBM). Intel and other technology giants, As well as the fierce competition from powerful factories such as Taiwan Integrated Circuit Manufacturing Co., Ltd., accompanied by a huge shortage of industry talents, fierce competition and shortage of talents, domestic chips are progressing slowly.

The lack of market and social capital participation in domestic chips is also one of the reasons why China's "core" is not good. Investment in the chip industry has not always been popular, although in the state's financial support, the market, social capital and other active participation is also indispensable.

Where is the future of domestic mobile phone chip?

According to this year's government work report, the state requires the promotion of the development of the integrated circuit industry, commonly known as the "chip" industry's integrated circuit industry. Its importance can be described as "industrial food".

China's communications industry is developing later than developed countries. With the support and investment of the state in policies and funds, domestic chips are constantly making breakthroughs and moving to the middle and high end. The construction of core technology needs a cycle, and it must go through a process of continuous breakthrough. At present, Huawei's mobile phone chip is expected to work faster on the 5G. Relevant domestic companies have started to develop memory chips, and domestic fingerprint recognition chips are gradually increasing market share.

The continuous accumulation of chip research and development and the long period of improvement and huge investment are also important reasons why many domestic companies are deterred. Huawei's Haisi chip can achieve a breakthrough, and the backing of Huawei's mobile phone is crucial. At the same time, the mass accumulation of capital and talents does not represent an improvement in technical standards. Behind it is still the need for market guidance. When the chips produced can be put into use and continue to improve iterations, and climb in the market to enter a virtuous cycle, China's "core" will soon be strong.

The page contains the contents of the machine translation.