With the rapid development of 4G industry in China, the competition in China's 4G terminal chip market will continue to intensify in 2014. How do 4G terminal chip manufacturers determine their own differentiation in multi-mode chip performance, market positioning, price strategy and other fields? The new LTE market has become a focus of attention in the industry.
The trend of multifunctional integration is obvious
As we all know, terminals and chips have always been the bottleneck restricting the development of the TDD industry. However, according to the reporter, there are already 15 domestic and foreign manufacturers developing more than 40 TD-LTE chips. The current situation of 4G initial terminal chips is far better than that of TD-SCDMA.
In the first half of 2013, shipments of communication chips reached 1.1 billion. With the acceleration of LTE commercial processes, the long-term coexistence of multi-networks has made multi-frequency multi-mode a basic requirement for the development of communication chip technology. At the same time, it also has outstanding technical advantages in the integration of RF chips and RF front-ends required for multi-mode and multi-frequency.
In terms of application processing chips, in order to meet the needs of mobile application innovation, two technology upgrade paths are formed around processing capabilities: First, continue to increase the degree of multi-core multiplexing, represented by eight-core chips launched by MediaTek and Samsung. Nuclear flexible scheduling. The second is represented by 64-bit ARM architecture chips introduced by Apple and Qualcomm, and the overall upgrade is achieved by improving the single-core processing capability.
Xu Zhiyuan, an expert from the Telecommunications Research Institute of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, told the China Electronics News that the two technological upgrading paths showed a development trend of overlapping and integration. Multi-core chips have excellent multi-tasking capabilities, support for superior image processing and rich multimedia specifications, while the chip infrastructure is being upgraded to 64-bit while also borrowing from existing multi-core parallel technologies to achieve a significant jump in processing power. At present, the above two technical routes have received positive response from chip design companies.
In addition, the trend of multi-functional integration of mobile chips continues to strengthen. Data show that global smartphone shipments account for more than 50% of single-chip solutions, and China is close to 90%. The integrated single chip with integrated application processor and communication baseband processor has been welcomed by the market due to its advantages in cost performance and power consumption control.
"From the Qualcomm integrated single-chip products adopted by the Samsung galaxy series of multiple versions of the terminal, it can be seen that the single chip has already broken through the traditional development concept of low-end machines and gradually penetrates into the mid-to-high-end models." Xu Zhiyuan said. It is reported that Lianxin, Marvell, HiSilicon, Spreadtrum, Intel, Qualcomm, etc. are also important participants in integrated chips. In addition, Lianxin, ZTE Micro, MTK and Broadcom have released 28nm multimode TD-LTE SoC chips. Intel, Repost, and Spreadtrum are also actively developing 28nm multimode TD-LTE SoC chips.
Giants fight in the low-end market
On the one hand, the rapid development of chip technology, on the other hand, the strong market demand. The latest data is that HiSilicon, Marvell and Qualcomm's TD-LTE SoC chips are mass-produced, with more than 12 million shipments. Due to insufficient stocking, the market is in short supply. As Zhang Lu, director of mobile products at Marvell, said in an interview with China Electronics News, the speed of LTE development in the first half of 2014 was beyond everyone's expectations.
Faced with the rapid development of China's LTE market, especially the huge number of 4G terminal purchases on the operator side, domestic and foreign chip manufacturers have adjusted their strategies to quickly enter the market. For example, Qualcomm, which has absolute advantages in the field of high-end 4G multi-mode chips, has introduced a new microprocessor chip with integrated LTE functions. Its products have the advantages of low power consumption and low price, and are suitable for the low-end 4G sold in the domestic market. smart phone.
Industry analysts pointed out that foreign chip companies have rushed into the Chinese mobile phone chip market with low prices as a demand. To a certain extent, it also shows that international companies have prepared to sacrifice gross profit in exchange for market share.
Broadband, which has been in a weak position in the mobile phone chip market for a long time, has acquired the first 4G LTE multi-mode chip in the recent low-end market after acquiring the Renesas 4G assets and acquiring LTE technology. The industry seems that Broadcom's move is intended to compete with Qualcomm, MediaTek and other manufacturers in the low-end mobile phone market and set off a war.
PC-based chip overlord Intel has also re-adjusted its chip strategy after acquiring Infineon. In the second half of 2013, it launched a highly competitive 4G chip and began to develop more for smartphones priced below $300. Products, hope to expand the market share in the low-end smartphone market.
In the early stage of LTE, we worked closely with terminal vendors and operators, and chose to sacrifice the cost to quickly occupy the market and become the strategy of most chip companies. For example, the Coolpad 8720L with Marvell4G chip has been popular in the market. In China Mobile's customized mobile phone channel, the mobile phone sales rank second in all TD-LTE mobile phone sales, second only to superstars. Mobile phone iPhone5s. Zhang Lu, director of mobile products at Marvell, also said that Marvell will have more cost-effective LTE multi-mode single-chip solutions available in the international market in 2014.
How do domestic companies respond?
At present, Qualcomm occupies the majority market share of LTE multi-mode multi-frequency chips by virtue of its technology and market advantages. However, some analysts pointed out that as MediaTek and HiSilicon's 4G multi-mode chip products were commercialized at the end of 2014 in the first half of 2014, the entire LTE multi-mode multi-frequency chip market pattern will turn in mid-2014. Competition will continue to intensify, and the situation in which the oligarchy dominates the market may no longer exist.
Gartner research director Sheng Linghai predicts that in 2014, 4G multi-mode chips will show a trend of “28â€. The shipments in the first half of the year will be around 20%. In the second half of the year, major chip manufacturers will realize mass production of multi-mode chips. Surge to 80%. But at the same time, he believes that in the five-mode 4G chip market, at least in 2014, it is still the protagonist of international manufacturers.
According to Zhou Laiping, market analyst of the Shenzhen Semiconductor Industry Association, Haisi may be the only Chinese force in the field of 4G five-mode chips this year. "Hai Si's actions in the second half of this year should be relatively large. In the past, Haisi's 5-mode chips were mostly used in Huawei mobile phones, and in the second half of the year, several products will be launched and licensed to other mobile phone manufacturers." Zhou Laiping said.
Although China Mobile's latest terminal customization strategy "discards" the three models, the industry is generally optimistic about 4G three-mode chips, which will become the capital of domestic chip companies and international giants in the second half of this year. "Although China Mobile has cut off the three-mode 4G chip in the open channel, with the help of Internet companies, virtual operators and other emerging markets, domestic three-mode 4G chips still have market space." A domestic chip manufacturer is responsible for this. Tell the reporter of China Electronics News.
In the face of foreign companies have been targeting the domestic 4G multi-mode chip market and playing low-end cards, how do Chinese chip companies respond? Sheng Linghai believes that in addition to the domestic enterprises themselves to constantly "cultivate internal strength", improve the level of research and development and technical strength, and also need relevant policy support at the national level.
The relevant person in charge of Spreadtrum said in an interview that China is the world's largest mobile communication market and mobile terminal base, which will enable domestic chip companies to take the lead in market competition and rely on the advantages of the terminal industry chain in the low-end intelligence. The mobile phone market is based on it and is gradually moving towards high-end product development.
Some domestic chip makers also said that foreign chip makers focusing on the low-end 4G multi-mode chip field will not become a pressure in the short term. “The low-end market is costly for foreign chip manufacturers. In addition, in the face of some small and medium-sized enterprises, domestic chip companies still have advantages in localizing customer service capabilities, service response and technical support.†The relevant person in charge of Lianxin Technology told reporter.
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