[Mobile China] From last year to this year, Xiaomi's mysterious new phone 5c has kept a high exposure in the mobile phone circle. Many people do not understand why the midrange Xiaomi 5c has such a "courtesy"? In fact, the reason why Xiaomi 5c is eye-catching is that it will be equipped with Xiaomi's first self-developed processor, which is called "Pinecone".
Compared with a series of familiar names in the industry, such as "Xiaolong", "Exynos" and "Kirin", "Pinecone" is less domineering and more friendly to the people. Of course, when the keywords "millet", "independent research and development" and "processor" come together, the name of the processor is no longer important. After all, what people care most about is the processor itself and the meaning behind it.
The Origin of Pine Nuts
In the long run, it is a very wise choice for domestic mobile phone brands to independently develop processors, which can reduce the dependence on foreign countries. As an old Internet mobile phone manufacturer in China, its annual sales volume is tens of millions. Xiaomi naturally understands this.
Many people do not know that in November 2014, Datang Telecom, a well-known domestic backbone enterprise in the information industry, announced that the SDR1860 platform technology developed and owned by its wholly-owned subsidiary Lianxin Technology was licensed to Beijing Songguo Electronics Co., Ltd. jointly invested by Xiaomi and Lianxin at a price of 103 million yuan. In other words, Xiaomi has begun to research and develop layout chips for many years.
According to media reports at that time, Beijing Pine Fruit Electronics Co., Ltd. was jointly invested and established by Xiaomi and Lianxin, of which Xiaomi held 51% shares and Lianxin 49% shares. Pineapple Electronics' employees are mainly from Lianxin, while Datang Lianxin is still responsible for the packaging test and wafer manufacturing of the new company. In addition, although Pineapple Electronics only authorized Datang Lianxin SDR1860 platform technology with 103 million yuan, it will independently develop mobile phone SoC in the future.
It is reported that Xiaomi plans to launch a mobile phone with its self-developed processor in the autumn of 2016. Now it seems that this mobile phone will be postponed.
Performance fever
Xiaomi will launch its self-developed mobile phone chip and launch it on the upcoming Xiaomi 5c, both of which are well-known. Although the official of Xiaomi has been silent about this, a series of information about the pineapple processor has surfaced recently, and at the same time, Xiaomi has finally confirmed its statement that it will promote the self-developed processor: first, the microblog account @ Pineapple Electronics appeared on the microblog, and then the official website of Pineapple Electronics was also found by netizens.
Pinecone Electronic Official Website
It is worth noting that the users concerned by @ Pinguo electronic microblog account include several official microblogs of Xiaomi. At the same time, in the national enterprise credit information publicity system, the pledgee of Beijing Pinguo Electronic Co., Ltd. is Xiaomi Communication Technology Co., Ltd. The above two points are sufficient to prove the joint relationship between Pinguo processor and Xiaomi.
After all that talk, how about the pine cone processor? Is the performance feverish? In fact, according to the positioning of Xiaomi 5c, the performance of the first pineapple processor need not be overestimated. However, a series of news disclosed by netizens in the post bar raised their expectations.
In fact, Xiaomi has more than one self-developed processor this year. According to some parameters of the pinecone processor exposed by netizens, the first version of the pinecone processor on Xiaomi 5c is V670, while the more high-end V970 chip, which uses the A73 eight core architecture, is expected to debut in the fourth quarter of this year, with the first version of Xiaomi 6s and Xiaomi Note 3.
Millet 5c
Specifically, the performance of the pinecone V670 processor carried by Xiaomi 5c is equivalent to that of Qualcomm Snapdragon 625. It adopts a 28nm process, is designed by Xiaomi and Lianxin, and uses a big architecture consisting of 4 × A53 large cores and 4 × A53 small cores. The graphics processor used with it is Mali T860 MP4, with a main frequency speed of 800MHz; The more high-end Pinecone V970 processor adopts the 10nm process of Samsung OEM, and its core parameters are 4 × A73+4 × A53 eight core architecture. The main frequency of the large core is 2.7GHz, while the small core is 2.0GHz. At the same time, it is equipped with a more powerful Mali G71 MP12 graphics chip, and the main frequency speed is 900MHz.
Xiaomi 5c run points
Xiaomi 5c processor scores
In general, the performance of the Pinecone V670 processor is comparable to that of the midrange processors on the market, which conforms to the positioning of Xiaomi 5c midrange computers; The Pinecone V970 processor is equipped with the same A73 core and Mali G71 GPU as the Kirin 960. However, it is superior in terms of the frequency of CPU cores, the number of GPU cores, and the process technology. Therefore, it can surpass the Kirin 960 in terms of performance alone. As for whether exceeding Kirin 960 is a fever, you'd better tell yourself.
Meaning behind
As mentioned earlier, for Xiaomi, or all mobile phone manufacturers, independent chip development is the right path. If there was any doubt about the feasibility of developing chips by domestic manufacturers before, Huawei, now the top three in the world, has proved how significant it is to develop chips by itself through the performance of Kirin processors and mobile phone products. Xiaomi, whose performance has been sluggish in the past two years, needs to choose such a way to get out of the haze. In my opinion, the significance behind Xiaomi's self-developed pineapple processor is as follows:
First of all, although the sales volume and ranking of Xiaomi mobile phones are not as good as before, the tens of millions of shipments are enough to support a chip product line. Of course, from the current point of view, it is impossible for Xiaomi to brand all mobile phones with pineapple all at once, so it would be wise to choose to start from the middle and low end. You know, like Meizu, Xiaomi's national red rice series accounts for the largest part of its total sales, and it is no problem to use the sales of red rice mobile phones to support the shipment of pineapple chips. Another important point is that the millet self-developed processor can directly reduce the cost of mobile phone components, so as to better maintain the high cost performance of the red rice series.
Secondly, the appearance of the pineal processor has broken the "monopoly" of Xiaomi's hard core partners, such as Qualcomm and MediaTek, to some extent, and has also improved Xiaomi's own voice and bargaining power. Moreover, Android manufacturers including Xiaomi have suffered from Qualcomm. For example, Qualcomm Snapdragon 810, which was "red in half the sky" at that time, would not be restricted by Qualcomm if Xiaomi had more choices at that time, thus putting itself in an awkward situation. In short, the pineal processor gives Xiaomi more room to maneuver, without worrying about the risk of putting eggs in one basket.
Thirdly, under the situation that the domestic mobile phone market tends to be saturated, domestic manufacturers, including Xiaomi, are seeking new growth points overseas. However, if Xiaomi wants to gain a share in the international market, patent is a challenge it has to face. According to the 2016 U.S. Patent Economy Market Report released by ROL Law Firm in 2016, Xiaomi appeared in the buyer list for the first time and ranked 4th. However, patents on chips are still an obstacle for Xiaomi to "expand its territory". Xiaomi chose to cooperate with Datang Lianxin, which means that it sees the patent advantage of Datang Lianxin in communication technology.
Finally, Xiaomi's development of pineapple processor can achieve the effect of killing two birds with one stone, that is, to improve profits and brand image. Taking Apple as an example, the huge annual shipments of iPhones and iPads can largely share the R&D costs of chips, thus improving the profit space. The same is true for Xiaomi. In addition, although the pine cone processor is a purchased ARM public design, "independent research and development" is still a huge propaganda point, and also very consistent with the concept of "new domestic products" emphasized by Lei Jun many times.
summary
China is in the renaissance period, which has given rise to a stronger sense of national pride among Chinese people. When something is linked to "autonomy", it will become the focus of attention. Now, domestic smart phone brands can compete with international brands on the international stage without fear. If there are more home-made "weapons", the combat effectiveness and morale will also rise. As a member of the first square of the domestic camp, Xiaomi can independently develop a pineapple processor. No matter what reason and purpose, everyone should support it, rather than wait to make a fool of it.
Original link: http://www.cnmo.com/reviews/568214.html
