Mobile chip explosive growth

In recent years, under the strong influence of the development of mobile Internet, mobile smart terminals have replaced PCs as a new market and new driving force for the development of global integrated circuits. In 2012, global mobile chip sales have basically remained at the same level as PC-related chips. The explosive growth of the mobile chip market has prompted the reshaping of the original integrated circuit industry structure. Industry leaders have also been transposed during the game process. ARM has emerged as the new leader in the chip industry. Following the market value of Qualcomm surpassing Intel, TSMC is also gradually approaching it.

In the process of the new direction of the industry and the formation of a new market structure, the mobile chip-related design and manufacturing technology has always maintained a trend of rapid innovation:

From a design point of view, baseband and RF chips are closely related to the development of mobile communication networks. With the gradual commercialization of LTE, the current status of multi-mode network coexistence has made multi-frequency multi-mode a basic requirement for development. Qualcomm has launched all mobile communications. The standard 28 nm six-mode baseband chip also has a leading edge in supporting multi-band RF front-end integration. The application processing chip has begun to enter the eight-core stage after the quad-core. The more complicated parallel scheduling mode not only brings higher chip hardware design difficulty, but also puts forward new requirements for corresponding coordination of the operating system. In addition to multi-core multiplexing, upgrading the processing power of a single core to promote the upgrade of application processing chips has become another new direction explored by the industry. Samsung, MTK, and Qualcomm all have extensive attention. Apple’s recently released A7 is the first based on 64-bit. ARMv8 instruction set chip, according to Apple's official data show that its overall performance is faster than the A6 chip on the iPhone5 2 times faster, is 40 times the processor used on the first generation iPhone.

From the manufacturing point of view, the mobile chip manufacturing process quickly followed the PC level, and the 28nm stepped into mass production. Under the urging of application and market competition, process technology is expected to maintain a rapid upgrade. Intel's 22nm three-dimensional transistor technology for mobile chips will be available at the end of this year, and TSMC is also increasing the construction of 20nm and 16nm. Investment efforts, according to its contract with Apple's foundry, worked 20nmA8 in 2014 and upgraded to 16nmA9/A9X in 2015.

With the strong drive of the domestic market and the active use of international open technology achievements, China has initially achieved a breakthrough in core technologies and market applications in the field of mobile chips, and has achieved a far better position in the PC era. A number of leading companies emerged in various subdivided areas. While their product lines have become increasingly rich and their sales have gradually increased, the influence of global industries has also rapidly increased. The localization rate of mobile chips has been rapidly increased, and multi-mode baseband chips and multi-core applications have been handled. Key breakthroughs have been made in key areas such as chips and multi-integration single chips, and the understanding of infrastructure and hardware and software optimization have been gradually deepened. 40nm process volume production has been realized in the mobile chip manufacturing segment.

To sum up, at this stage in our country, we have not only succeeded in achieving the leap from "coreless" to "cored", but also further from the "core" to "strong core" in the future. It is recommended to continue to seize the important opportunity for innovation and innovation in the mobile Internet industry, make full use of China's huge domestic market advantages, strengthen the overall layout around mobile smart terminals, optimize the mobile chip industry environment, and strengthen industrial interaction between design, manufacturing, and terminals, and further breakthroughs. Mobile chip core design technology to achieve integrated upgrade of integrated circuit technology and industry.