Another milestone for Unisoc 5G chips
Latest update time：2021-12-31 17:56
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Judging from the data, since Chu Qing took over as the company's CEO in 2019 and set the goal of self-developed 5G, Spreadtrum has ushered in a glorious three years.
Take the company's mobile phone chips as an example. According to Counterpoint's latest report for the third quarter, Unisoc's Q3 global smartphone AP market share reached 10%, reaching double digits for the first time. This is undoubtedly something Unisoc is proud of. Because in 2018 and 2019, Unisoc was included in the "others" category of the rankings due to its small market share. It was not until 2020 that it began to be counted separately, and its market share was only 4%. Entering this year, Unisoc continues to sing all the way. After doubling its growth to 8.4% in the second quarter of 2021, Unisoc achieved another success in the third quarter.
In Chu Qing's words, the reason why Spreadtrum can bloom such a "flower" in the mobile phone chip market is the inevitable result of organizational and management changes. But for Spreadtrum, this is just the beginning. Because Chu Qing set two major strategic goals for the company, namely "Ecosystem Undertaker" and "People's 5G".
Speaking of the latter, Chu Qing emphasized that next year will be an important year for 5G. Judging from the latest release of Spreadtrum, this leading domestic chip manufacturer is also gearing up to be fully prepared for the fierce battle next year.
Milestones of 5G chips
Readers familiar with the chip industry should know that the mass production of a chip needs to go through several important stages, that is, to solve the basic performance function problems, solve the chip hardware problems related to yield through a large number of tests, and then gradually reach the state of chip mass production as we usually say. But this is not enough, because they still have to go through a level, that is, to achieve mass production of customer products.
Zhou Chen, general manager of the consumer electronics division of Unisoc, also pointed out that for a chip, the mass production of customer products is a milestone event. Especially in the mobile phone chip set. Because there are multiple chips in the 5G mobile phone chip set. For example, in the new generation of 5G chip platform of Unisoc, there are 7 chips including the main chip, transceiver, pmic and connectivity. If such a level of chip is to meet the mass production requirements, then its quality reliability is high, which is also a very challenging thing for chip companies.
Recently, at its "People's 5G" online launch conference, Spreadtrum joined hands with industry ecosystem partners such as China Telecom, ZTE, Hisense, TSMC, and GSMA to witness the mass production of customer products by Spreadtrum's second-generation 5G chip platforms Tanggula T770 and Tanggula T760, and jointly create the people's 5G.
According to Zhou Chen, the Tanggula T770, a new generation of 5G chip platform of Unisoc, is one of the earliest 6nm EUV advanced process chips in mass production in the entire industry. This situation has never happened in the history of Unisoc. Thanks to the advanced nature of the new generation of technology, Unisoc not only brought performance improvements to the Tanggula T770, but also achieved a reduction in power consumption; Unisoc also inherited the new generation of Makalu 5G Modem communication platform in this chip, which greatly improved its 5G performance. In terms of architecture design, Unisoc has made a decision to aim at the future, making it fully compatible with the requirements of future new versions such as R16.
The new Vivimagic imaging system is another feature of the new generation platform of Unisoc. Zhou Chen said that the new platform includes multiple ISPs, as well as support for high frame rate and billion-pixel imaging capabilities, coupled with multi-domain algorithm improvements and enhancements, providing consumers with a new imaging experience; in addition, Unisoc's artificial intelligence capabilities on the new platform have also been greatly improved.
"In our entire series, we can support up to 10T-level NPU computing power and have high energy efficiency, providing a good hardware platform for the subsequent large number of new applications based on artificial intelligence." Zhou Chen told reporters.
Chu Qing, CEO of Unisoc, said: "The mass production of customer products by the second-generation 5G chip platform reflects Unisoc's comprehensive upgrade in semiconductor technology and communication technology, and ranks among the first echelon of global advanced technology. As the world's first 6nm chip platform to successfully return chips, the platform has a performance improvement of more than 100% and an integration improvement of more than 100% compared to the first generation. Consumers and industry customers will soon experience this generation of the latest technological weapon; at the same time, it supports the most cutting-edge communication technologies such as 5G R16 and 5G slicing, leading us into a truly 5G smart society."
“5G for the People”
At the press conference, Chu Qing reiterated a point he has always believed in, that is, the 5G era has opened a new door. He further pointed out that intelligence (represented by AI) and connectivity (represented by 5G) will form the core of the future society. The two are also complementary.
"If there is only connection but no intelligence, then the connection will lack connotation and value; if there is only intelligence but no connection, then intelligence will become an isolated island, and this intelligence is meaningless because it cannot reflect its value. So these two things complement each other, and these two things also constitute the two foundations of Spreadtrum's long-term development. The company has also made a lot of investment in them." Chu Qing explained. "We have established a framework called "Tianshan" to make intelligence and connection inseparable, but develop independently of each other." Chu Qing told reporters.
Driven by these business ideas and technologies, Unisoc's second-generation 5G platform has been first applied in consumer electronics fields such as 5G smartphones. The comprehensive improvement of its performance, battery life, imaging, AI and other capabilities will bring users a smoother 5G experience and richer smart life fun.
But as Chu Qing said at the meeting: "5G's capabilities are not only in consumer electronics. It will also play a huge role in promoting the Internet of Things."
In order to promote 5G to achieve its ambitious goals faster and better, Spreadtrum has worked closely with the three major domestic operators in the past year on technologies such as slicing and 5G R16. The company has also conducted full-link slicing tests with the three major operators and achieved success. On July 30 this year, Spreadtrum and China Unicom launched the world's first R16 version. "R16 will fully demonstrate the charm of 5G, and the ideas on how to transform the industrial system are all written in R16. This is why we have been concentrating on it for a long time." Chu Qing said.
It can be seen that the second-generation 5G chip platform of Spreadtrum integrated with R16 will play a key role in Spreadtrum's expansion into markets other than mobile phones.
Taking industrial electronics as an example, Huang Yuning, general manager of Unisoc's industrial electronics division, said that Unisoc's second-generation 5G chip platform provides an uplink and downlink speed experience of more than 1 Gigabit, and also provides a flexible baseband architecture that can support more new features through software upgrades. These two features make it very friendly to applications in the industry.
"Unlike the consumer sector, in industrial applications, 5G connects machines and equipment, which are often mainly data producers. Therefore, ultra-gigabit uplink capability is the technical basis to ensure that the data produced can be transmitted quickly and efficiently; and the upgradeable baseband architecture and serialized middleware can efficiently support the customized development of industry solutions." Huang Yuning continued.
Because the reliability requirements of the industry are higher than those of the consumer sector, Huang Yuning said that Unisoc will launch a complete solution suitable for industrial-grade high and low temperature environments and complex electromagnetic environments as planned, laying a solid foundation for the widespread application of 5G in industrial and automotive applications. Unisoc said that in the vertical industry field, Unisoc's second-generation 5G platform will also enable the intelligent upgrade of industrial systems and various industries in society in many scenarios such as industrial Internet of Things, mobile Internet, fixed wireless access, Internet of Vehicles, and networked PCs.
Although huge opportunities lie ahead for Spreadtrum, and greater success seems to be within reach, Chu Qing said that as 5G continues to advance, the company will face increasingly powerful competitors and higher demands from customers. For this reason, he believes that in the future, Spreadtrum will face more intense competition.
"Next year will be the world of 5G R16, and the competition will really start. If you are not prepared, you will miss it." Chu Qing emphasized. "Our goal is to make our 5G affordable for everyone and easy to use everywhere. Promote the 'people's 5G' aspiration to become a reality." Chu Qing finally said.
*Disclaimer: This article is originally written by the author. The content of the article is the author's personal opinion. Semiconductor Industry Observer reprints it only to convey a different point of view. It does not mean that Semiconductor Industry Observer agrees or supports this point of view. If you have any objections, please contact Semiconductor Industry Observer.
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