5G chip war: four major suppliers have their own agenda

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Facing this 5G chip war of the century, different chip suppliers actually have different significance and may influence the overall picture of the global 5G chip market.

After mobile operators around the world decided to kick off the global 5G market opportunities in 2019, various 5G chip suppliers have also begun gearing up to launch their own 5G chip solutions in the hope of seizing the initiative.

Qualcomm and Unisoc both held their own 5G technology seminars in early December. Intel and MediaTek are not far behind and are expected to expand their 5G chip solutions at the CES Consumer Electronics Show in early 2019.

However, this 5G chip war actually has different meanings for different companies: Qualcomm sees it as a technology war, Intel sees it as a growth war, MediaTek sees it as a survival war, and Unisoc sees it as a mainland China war. Each company has its own position, strengths, and home court in the competitive situation.

As the world's largest IC design company and an advocate of mobile communication technology, Qualcomm not only took the lead in launching 5G modem and chip platforms, but also expanded the so-called turnkey service content to a more vertically integrated supply chain including RF modules, antenna modules, related materials, system design and firmware development.

Qualcomm's ambition to view the 5G generation business war as a war of technology not only further highlights the fact that its own 5G technology, patented IP and chip solutions are significantly ahead of other competitors, but also makes other peers raise the threshold to the technical level when they want to enter the global 5G chip market. It is not enough to participate in market opportunities just by having qualified 5G chip functions. They must be able to effectively prove that their own 5G technology, IP patents and chips are fully competitive before they are qualified to truly upgrade to the 5G generation to challenge.

As Qualcomm's biggest competitor in the past 10 years, MediaTek's 5G R&D team has been determined to narrow the technological gap with Qualcomm since the first day of its establishment, shortening it from the previous 2-3 years to less than 6 months.

Therefore, MediaTek has been active in discussions on 5G technology, specifications and standards over the past two to three years, and has successfully seized the right to speak many times. As for its contribution to 5G technology, it is also clearly ranked high among global technology companies.

For MediaTek, the Helio M70 5G Modem chip, which was code-named and ordered one year in advance, is directly mass-produced using TSMC's 7nm process, and is clearly of the same generation as the leader. Combined with the company's pioneering AI technology, MediaTek has invested unprecedented amounts of resources in 5G chip solutions, with a strong sense of survival that can only succeed and not fail.

As for Intel, after its 4G modem chip solution was adopted by Apple's full range of mobile device products in 2018, the company's 5G modem chip will also appear in the first half of 2019, revealing that Intel is also very much looking forward to getting rid of the burden of long-term sluggish demand in the global PC and NB markets, and hopes to add new highlights to the mobile device market in areas other than servers, so as to inject stronger operational growth momentum into the company.

Although Unisoc is still a small player in the global mobile phone chip market, it has always had high ambitions. After the mainland technology industry has been under pressure from the pain of having no core in its long-term development, Unisoc regards its own 5G chip platform and ecosystem as a battle for the mainland technology industry. It has the opportunity to receive politically correct resources from industry, government and academia, and move the starting point of its own 5G chip solutions forward a lot.

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