[Online view] Domestic mobile phone core making "Yewang"

Supply chain is manufacturing mobile phone It is an important part of the process of mobile phone manufacturing. The normal operation of almost all mobile phone manufacturers is inseparable from the cooperation with the supply chain. However, domestic mobile phone manufacturers rely too much on the supply chain. Everyone uses the same screen, the same chip... and then integrates and brushes their own UI developed on the basis of the open source system, and then releases it. The homogenization is serious, and only the price card can be played, but this trick is not so easy to use now.

Since the development of the mobile phone industry, more and more manufacturers have left behind, and many familiar names have gradually faded out of people's vision and been blocked out of the new era. In addition, compared with flagship mobile phones, they often have more new technologies and new functions from manufacturers. Mid end phones often use more mature technologies. The homogenization of each phone is more serious, and the market is becoming more and more voluminous. It is difficult to open the gap simply by configuring.

01 If you can't afford to research and develop chips, you will be eliminated sooner or later

Speaking of volumes, today's mobile phone market strength is strong, but also the "spoiler" Lei Jun's Xiaomi. Mi phones In the past, we quickly seized market share with the cost-effective strategy of high configuration and low price. In the face of this suicidal approach, many domestic manufacturers are led by the nose and have no cards to play. Everyone has the same configuration. If the volume does not move, you must exit.

In 1999, Xiaomi eliminated a large number of assembly plants. If someone quits, someone will come up, but the essence will not change. At the end of the roll, no one will make money, and everyone will die together. The manufacturers standing at the top of the industry pyramid will not be shaken by the troublemakers below. No matter how expensive they sell, a large number of people will buy it.

The first three generations of Apple iPhone It uses chips made by Samsung. Since the iPhone 4, the first self-developed chip A4 has appeared. The high adaptation of iOS operating system and A series chips has helped Apple open the era of mobile phone intelligence and the road of 15 years of technological dominance. Since then, Apple's iPad, Apple Watch, Mac, AirPods and other products have all completed their own chip integration, which has jointly built Apple's current huge ecosystem.

To a certain extent, chips are the core competitiveness of mobile phone manufacturers. Therefore, it is not difficult to find that the necessary condition for those who can reach the top of the tower is to have their own self-developed chips. Only with technology that others do not have, can we have more say in the mobile phone market. It can bring unique experience to users, and is an absolute ace in the face of price competition.

Huawei's Hisense Kirin 9000 chip is the world's first 5G SoC with 5nm process, integrated transistor It is even more than Apple A14. With the advantages of Kirin's self-developed chip and 5G in the underlying system, Huawei has developed many functions such as GPU Tober and EROFS, and finally evolved Harmony OS, the world's third largest mobile phone operating system, under the attack of Android and iOS. This system has left a deep impression on the smoothness and interconnection of multiple devices.

It can be seen that the introduction of self-developed chips has become a must for domestic manufacturers to further develop and create exclusive differentiation through self-developed chips. Therefore, holding the core technology in their own hands is the foundation for domestic mobile phones to stand firm in the mobile phone market in the future, and can have the confidence to challenge the top of the industry.

Fortunately, the decision-makers of our domestic manufacturers have already had a deep understanding of this. The mobile phone image industry has become a new idea for domestic manufacturers to seek breakthroughs. In order to create an exclusive and differentiated user experience, Xiaomi and Vivo have successively launched the self-developed image ISP chip Pengpai C1 and vivo V1 +, and OPPO is the trump card. It directly launched Mariana X, an image dedicated NPU chip. Compared with ISP, the NPU chip not only has stronger performance, but also has the ability to learn in depth, continue to evolve, and constantly improve the ability to optimize images. Mariana X is only 30% developed at present, which is expected in the future.

You know, self-developed chips are not something that can be done. It costs a lot of manpower, financial resources and time. Jiang Bo, senior director of OPPO chip products, said: When developing Mariana X, the cost of OPPO investment was calculated in the order of 100 million dollars, which shows that OPPO is really determined to make chips. The price of the manufacturer's volume a few years ago is the strength of the current manufacturer's volume, which cannot afford to develop chips, and will be eliminated sooner or later.

There are many difficulties in developing chips, but for an enterprise that aims to impact high-end brands and provide users with better products, it is a must. Although the chips produced in mass by the three domestic giants, OVM, are not comparable to the highly integrated SoC chips, and even ridiculed by people, except Huawei, the core making of other domestic mobile phones is an extravagant hope and a marketing gimmick, it is important to take the first step, and the snowflakes will become bigger and bigger snowballs.

02 OPPO's first image in the next decade

The Mariana X chip project was established in 2019 and first appeared at the OPPO Future Science and Technology Conference at the end of 2021. At the beginning of this year, the high-end flagship mobile phone OPPO Find X5 Series commercial. In this era of excess performance, OPPO's first self-developed chip is a very correct choice to start in its image field.

Mariana X adopts advanced 6nm process technology and DSA's new golden architecture concept. It has a super computing power of up to 18TOPS, that is, up to 18 trillion calculations per second, and has reached the industry-leading 11.6TOPS/w energy consumption level. It has the performance of 20bit Ultra HDR dynamic range capability, 20bit RAW domain processing and RGBW Pro dual path processing.

As a special image NPU chip, Mariana X is the right arm of the core processor. SoC does not meet the computing power and energy efficiency requirements of mobile phone video systems. As an auxiliary chip, Mariana perfectly fills this gap. Compared with other self-developed ISP chips, this image dedicated NPU chip is much more difficult in research and development and investment costs than ISP. In terms of specific functions, ISP is an image processing unit, mainly used in the mobile phone's image system, and it is the key to photography and imaging effects. The Mariana X NPU is a neural network processor, which can improve the AI computing ability of mobile phones. The key is to have deep learning ability, which can continuously improve the image optimization ability through self-learning, providing new possibilities for mobile phone image performance.

The experience upgrade of mobile phone shooting night scene video is the best embodiment of Mariana X's super computing power. Thanks to MariLumi, a self developed image processing unit integrated by Mariana X, it can bring pixel level AI optimization frame by frame, improve the imaging capability of high dynamic range, and even in extremely harsh light conditions, it can shoot videos of high quality.

Of course, for OPPO, Mariana X is not only a simple performance improvement, but also the opening work of OPPO's image in the next decade. It is a chip to launch an impact on high-end industries, an attitude of rejecting mediocrity, and an initial intention to adhere to polishing high-quality products. It is also a milestone on the way of OPPO's self-development of chips, providing OPPO with experience and confidence in developing SoC level chips.

03 Decentralize the middle end to create a differentiated product experience

At the beginning of March, many people thought that the Mariana X chip developed by OPPO was exclusive to the high-end flagship Find series. After all, self-developed chips were rare in the industry. But it didn't come true. Only two months later, OPPO decentralized high-end technology. The mid tier model released in May Reno The 8 series was placed on the Mariana X chip.

The number of users of the entire Reno series has exceeded 60 million. We dare to place Mariana X in the Reno series. We believe OPPO has made full preparations, which also proves that this self-developed chip has reached the level of tens of millions of shipments, and OPPO is determined to create an exclusive brand differentiated product experience route from top to bottom.

Mariana X for OPPO Reno The improvement of the 8 series is also obvious. Mariana X cooperates with the mobile phone core processor to form a dual core portrait system for the Reno 8 series. It not only has the chip level 4K HDR video capability, but also the uniqueness of the hardware level is one of the highlights of OPPO Reno 8 series. Reno8 series is equipped with 50 million pixels Sony Customized portrait lens, the front camera is the exclusive super sensitive cat eye lens of Reno series, which is not available to others.

The combination of software and hardware can give full play to the strongest strength of mobile phone imaging system. OPPO in Software The level of investment and research and development, the exploration of cutting-edge imaging technology has never stopped. At the future imaging technology conference held last year, OPPO proposed the RGBW light capture sensor technology and applied it commercially in OPPO Reno 8 series.

The new RGBW pixel arrangement can increase the sensitivity by 32% and reduce the noise by 78%, which can greatly improve the sensitivity of the camera sensor, while producing a cleaner image with less noise.

In order to better optimize the front self timer capability, OPPO Reno8 The series also supports the function of portrait algorithm matrix. Reno8 series can carry out in-depth optimization for five selfie algorithms of beauty, skin grinding, whitening, stereoscopic, eye-catching and neck, providing users with more real facial details and fine beauty effects.

It can be seen that the OPPO Reno 8 series has been marked with the unique label of OPPO both in hardware and software, and has truly achieved a breakthrough in domestic self-development. From the exploration made by the Reno 8 series, we can see the determination of OPPO's localization and self-development. The experience upgrade brought by Mariana X gives OPPO mobile phone Unique label, which is a very valuable ability in the increasingly homogeneous mobile phone market.

For users, it is naturally a good thing to experience the most cutting-edge scientific and technological achievements without spending a lot of money. It can be said that OPPO Reno 8 series has quite strong competitiveness in the 3000 price range. This competitiveness is based on unique experience, and it is the ability to take what others do not have. It can also be seen that OPPO attaches great importance to middle end users and creates differentiated product experience, which is not limited to high-end products.

04 Only with core technology can we gain a firm foothold in the future market

Looking around the world, in addition to Apple and Samsung, they are still the mainstream players of mobile phones, basically all domestic manufacturers. However, it is easy to see from the global mobile phone sales data released by professional statistical institutions that Apple and Samsung, the two giants, have been the unshakable mountains of our domestic brands for a long time. The reason is that our technology is backward and we are restricted by others.

Fortunately, in the face of difficulties, domestic manufacturers have become fully aware. They know that developing chips by themselves is a hard road, and they can also predict that there will be many difficulties on this road. Once they fail, they will pay a heavy price. But their attitude of struggling is worth affirming.

Domestic self-developed chips have given us hope. Although we may be short of technical strength for the time being, we try to look far ahead and start from small chips step by step to gradually achieve the great goal. The "wild vision" of manufacturers may one day become a reality, and manufacturers will create unique and differentiated experience for users, It will also become a new mainstream game in the mobile phone market, and core technology will gradually become a new trump card. It is believed that in the future, more products equipped with domestic self-developed core technologies will be launched, so as to gain a firm foothold in the global market environment.

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