Behind the self-developed ISP chips of leading terminal manufacturers: the unchanging competition in the mobile phone market

Recently, vivo officially released its self-developed ISP chip named "V1" at an imaging technology sharing conference, which caused heated discussions in the industry. One of the most discussed topics is that in recent years, many domestic first-tier mobile phone brands have embarked on the road of self-developed chips, and without exception, they have chosen to use ISP chips to "test the waters".

The MIX FOLD model released by Xiaomi in March this year is equipped with the company's self-developed image ISP chip, Pengpai C1; there was news not long ago that the ISP chip developed by OPPO's subsidiary ZEKU Technology has been taped out at the beginning of this year, and the chip may be installed on the new Find series mobile phones released in the first half of 2022.

Perhaps everyone will have this question - why is it an ISP chip?

Breaking the bottleneck

As we all know, in recent years, mobile phone brands have almost become obsessed with competing in product camera functions. Every time a new phone is released, it is bound to show innovation in imaging. However, this trend is obviously contrary to the current situation.

In this regard, the supply chain said: "Since the camera has long been the focus of terminal brands to achieve product differentiation, the room for hardware upgrades is getting smaller and smaller. We have seen that in recent years, mobile phone brand imaging innovations mostly come from software algorithms or pixel enhancements of image sensors. In addition to these two aspects, ISP chips are another breakthrough."

ISP (Image Signal Processing) is a unit that processes the output signals of front-end image sensors to match image sensors from different manufacturers.

According to Jiwei.com, the ISP chip has a direct impact on the Auto Exposure / Auto Focus / Auto White Balance effects of photography, and these three aspects directly affect the imaging effect. It can be said that the design of the ISP chip has a key impact on the final imaging effect.

Therefore, it becomes more logical for terminal brands to pursue ISP chip autonomy.

For a long time in the past, the functions of ISP have been integrated into SoC chips. Therefore, the two giants Qualcomm and MTK also have an absolute monopoly in this field.

"In fact, in most cases, we buy the same sensors from manufacturers such as Sony, Samsung, and OV. Only a few flagship phones use customization, and SoCs are basically monopolized by Qualcomm and MTK. Therefore, before several leading manufacturers started their own research and development, everyone's ISP processing methods and paths were easily overlapped, which also means that the open parameters of the sensors are the same, making it difficult to achieve obvious differentiation in imaging effects." The above-mentioned supply chain manufacturer told Jiwei.com.

The manufacturer pointed out: "If terminal brands can design their own ISP chips, it means that even if they buy the same sensor, they can still achieve different effects, because the parameters open to everyone are different. In short, self-developed ISP chips allow terminal brands to maximize the functions of purchased sensors within their own capabilities."

Seeing the big picture from the small

In fact, in the highly mature mobile phone industry, independent innovation has become an inevitable path for leading manufacturers in all links. An industry insider told Jiwei.com: "In fact, Apple has been doing this for a long time, using independent design on ISP chips. Therefore, the performance of iPhone camera in 3A (Auto Exposure/ Auto Focus/ Auto White Balance) is obviously different from that of other brands. The same 8M/12M sensor can also achieve different effects from other terminal brands."

However, the other party also pointed out that whether independent design can be achieved and the final effect of independent design are equally important.

"Most of these brands probably purchased IP from outside, and then their own teams designed based on it. The reason for this is that, on the one hand, the IP of overseas companies has been widely used and is very mature, and on the other hand, there are many patent barriers in IP, which are difficult to circumvent. It's not that these brands can't develop their own IP, but in our opinion, there is little value in doing so."

"At present, it seems that the self-developed ISPs of these brands have little impact on Qualcomm and MTK; because whether they are adopted or not still depends on how much improvement the self-developed ISP can bring. Whether it is Qualcomm or MTK, the recognition and technological advantages they have gained in the industry are not achieved overnight. If the self-developed products do not improve the imaging effect much, it may also lead to an increase in various costs, which is not worth the loss." The above-mentioned industry insider added.

In addition, regarding the domestic mobile phone brands' successive releases of self-developed chips, some analysts believe that the current releases of self-developed chips by domestic terminal brands still have a declarative meaning. ISP just happens to meet everyone's current needs and capabilities. Under the influence of Sino-US trade issues, the mobile phone industry has gradually formed a trend of achieving independent control of chips.

Under this trend, terminal manufacturers have also started to deploy products other than ISP chips and software algorithms.

According to Tianyancha data, on September 3 this year, Shenzhen Lingming Photonics Technology Co., Ltd., a company that has already emerged in the dToF field, underwent industrial and commercial changes, adding a new shareholder, OPPO Guangdong Mobile Communications Co., Ltd. In October 2020, Hubei Xiaomi Yangtze River Industry Fund Partnership also invested in Lingming Photonics.

Industry insiders said that other traditional chip industries have a long history of development and a very solid structure. In contrast, in emerging sub-sectors such as dToF, the gap between domestic and foreign markets is not that large, so new entrants have more opportunities. In particular, mobile phone brands have gathered resource advantages in multiple links in the field of consumer electronics, which also adds more advantages to their realization of autonomy.