GPS chips are only 40nm, why do Beidou chips pursue 22nm?

On the morning of August 3, the State Council Information Office held a press conference. Ran Chengqi, director of the China Satellite Navigation System Management Office and spokesperson for the Beidou Satellite Navigation System, introduced that the Beidou system's 28nm process chips have been mass-produced, and the 22nm process chips are about to be mass-produced. my country's Beidou chips have made another major breakthrough. So after Beidou chips enter 22nm, how will the Beidou system better empower various industries and give birth to more new fields?

Why Evolve to 22nm?

As Beidou chips enter the 22nm process, doubts continue to come. In people's traditional thinking, navigation and positioning chips do not have high requirements for advanced processes. Currently, there are many navigation chips using 40nm processes. For example, GPS uses 40nm chips. So why are Beidou chips now frequently improving in advanced manufacturing?

In fact, the Beidou system is not only used in navigation and positioning, but is also given "high hopes" in other applications to empower various industries. Therefore, the requirements for Beidou chips are different from those for traditional satellite navigation chips, and the requirements for advanced manufacturing are self-evident.

Ge Chen, general manager of the Beijing branch of Shenzhen Huada Beidou Technology Co., Ltd., introduced that some of the more mature and cost-effective navigation and positioning chip processes currently use 40nm CMOS technology, which can bring many advantages to navigation and positioning chips, such as low power consumption, low cost, and low risk. However, if we want to better integrate with all walks of life, chips need to evolve on more advanced manufacturing. After Beidou chips enter 22nm, it means that microprocessors, analog IP cores, digital IP cores, memory, peripheral interfaces, etc. can be integrated on a single chip. It has the advantages of high integration, strong functions, low power consumption, and small size. It can effectively reduce the development cost of electronic/information system products, shorten the development cycle, and improve the competitiveness of products. It is an inevitable trend in the development of chip technology.

"The navigation chip itself does not have high requirements for advanced chip manufacturing processes, but for the Beidou system, it is not just a navigation system. The more it hopes to enable it to empower all walks of life. The higher the integration of the Beidou chip and the lower the power consumption, the better the Beidou system can integrate with other industries and its application range will be wider. For example, the application of Beidou in small unmanned systems requires the Beidou chip to further integrate small intelligent processors such as vision and scene recognition on the basis of the full-system, full-frequency baseband and RF integrated SoC. Therefore, the 22nm process is the most appropriate." said Zhang Quande, Secretary-General of the China Satellite Navigation Association.

"Beidou+" is a major trend

The "2020 China Satellite Navigation and Location Services Industry Development White Paper" shows that in 2019, the total output value of my country's satellite navigation and location services industry reached 345 billion yuan, an increase of 14.4% over 2018. Among them, the core output value of the industry directly related to the research and development and application of satellite navigation technology was 116.6 billion yuan, accounting for 33.8% of the total output value. It is estimated that the total output value will reach 228.4 billion yuan in 2020.

In order to be able to deeply integrate with new technologies such as the new generation of communications, blockchain, the Internet of Things, and artificial intelligence, and at the same time, more new models, new formats, and new economies of Beidou applications have emerged, the requirements for Beidou chips will become more stringent. In order to meet more application needs, and to better participate in global market competition and gain more market share, in addition to the upgrade of typical technical indicators such as process technology, positioning accuracy, and chip power consumption, the integration of "Beidou+" related technologies will also be the main trend of Beidou chip development in the future, and it is also one of the biggest challenges currently facing Beidou chips.

Zhang Quande introduced that the Beidou system focuses on building a new "Beidou +" business model, which has promoted the integration and development of Beidou and various technologies, and also promoted satellite navigation technology to serve the society and people's livelihood at a deeper level and in a wider field. Therefore, the future development trend of Beidou chips is functional integration, which enables them to integrate communications, the Internet of Things and various sensors, and become a booster for the development of the intelligent industry. At present, the application and industrialization development of Beidou has fully entered a new stage of technology integration, application integration, and industrial integration. Therefore, one of the biggest challenges facing Beidou chips today is the problem of functional integration and integration. How to better integrate Beidou chips with mobile communication chips, Internet of Things chips, etc. is very important for the development of the Beidou industry. Therefore, the 22nm-class chip is not only a breakthrough in the process, but also a step up in functional integration and integration.

Communication and navigation integration is the future development trend

The completion of Beidou networking is accompanied by the arrival of the first year of 5G commercialization. Since both communication and navigation use radio waves, there is a natural integration between the two. With the vigorous development of 5G, what new application areas will be spawned after integration with the Beidou system? "The development of 5G has put forward higher requirements for time and location, which provides opportunities for the integrated development of the Beidou satellite navigation system and 5G. The integrated development of the Beidou satellite navigation system and 5G will further promote the development of industries such as smart cities, smart agriculture, autonomous driving, unmanned driving, and drones, forming a new economic growth point. At the same time, this also puts forward more and higher requirements for Beidou chips. For example, in order to greatly improve the performance of the Beidou system in high-precision navigation and communication, the 22nm Beidou chip has reduced the area of ​​the high-precision RTK (Real-time kinematic) positioning module from 30mmx40mm to 12mmx16mm, reducing the area by 84%, and the module power consumption is reduced by 67% compared with the previous generation." Said an analyst from CCID Consulting.

The relevant person in charge of Beidou Starlink told reporters that in addition to basic functions such as positioning and timing, Beidou also has two-way communication capabilities, which is a capability that other positioning and navigation systems such as GPS do not have. It is the uniqueness of Beidou. Therefore, for application scenarios such as COSCO fishing vessels that do not have communication infrastructure, the Beidou system will play a huge advantage. At the same time, with the accelerated development of 5G today, the communication field is also constantly upgrading, and the integrated development trend of communication and navigation will become more and more obvious. In order to comply with this trend, Beidou chips will also develop more high-performance applications. For example, through the way of technology authorization, the multi-system compatible positioning technology of Beidou can be integrated into the main chip of the mobile phone, which can greatly promote the industrialization application of Beidou in the communication industry. In the future, with the continuous improvement of information infrastructure such as Beidou and 5G, combined with technologies such as artificial intelligence, big data, and cloud computing, more intelligent application scenarios will surely be born in the future.