In other words, for Xiaomi, everyone's impression labels are: cost performance, Internet marketing, and Xiaomi ecology. There is no "technology" in these core competitiveness.
Without chips, it seems difficult for Xiaomi to cross the barriers of the mobile phone industry.
In fact, as an insider, Xiaomi has been "squatting" in the chip field for a long time.
It has been more than three years since Xiaomi's self-developed pine cone chip was released-"surge of emotion". In the past three years, the economic situation at home and abroad and the chip industry environment have been surging, and the Sino-US trade war has the widest and deepest influence.
In the new round of trade war initiated by the US government under the leadership of Trump, we are more clearly aware that China has many shortcomings in core technologies, especially in the field of chips. In order to reverse the passive situation of core technology as soon as possible, China has invested a lot of manpower and material resources in recent years to encourage the development of related technology industries.
In this environment, Xiaomi's chip is particularly low-key. Some people say that it failed, and some people stand up and say that Xiaomi's chip is still under development, and it has long been a stalk for netizens to ridicule Lei Jun. So what is the real situation?
Xiaomi Guo Song was founded on 20 14 and 10. Since its establishment, when the chip S 1 was released in February 20 17, it became the focus of the media for the first time.
The emergence of Xiaomi's S 1 chip can be said to be a milestone in Xiaomi's history-after Samsung, Apple and Huawei, it is the fourth enterprise in the world that can develop and design chips and mobile phones at the same time.
Xiaomi's 2855438+0 processor didn't start from scratch.
20 165438+2004 10, one month after the establishment of Guo Song science and technology, it signed the SDR 1860 platform technology transfer contract with Lian Xin science and technology, a subsidiary of Datang Telecom, and obtained the SDR 1860 platform developed and held by Lian Xin science and technology at the price of1030,000 yuan. Coupled with the high support from Xiaomi, S 1 completed the project to mass production in only 28 months.
Although it was installed on Xiaomi 5c after the first mass production, the actual performance of 2855438+0 was very general, and according to the user's reaction, there were still some problems such as too fast power consumption, serious fever of mobile phone, and jamming, so it was quickly removed from the shelf.
Xiaomi is a company that attaches great importance to the user experience, so the release of S2 chips in the future is naturally cautious, which may be one of the reasons why Xiaomi is particularly low-key in the chip field in the future.
According to the internal information disclosed by netizens, one month after the release of 2855438+0, Xiaomi actually entrusted TSMC to start the trial production and prototype testing. This means that Xiaomi not only completed the S 1 mass production project within two years, but also completed the simulation optimization test of S2.
Yiou asked the relevant person in charge of Xiaomi for this information, but did not give feedback on the results of S2 movie online dissemination.
Judging from the results of the turbulent S2 diversion, it can be said that it was a "narrow escape", and judging from the recent dynamic performance, "fate" should not be far away.
According to the inquiry of public information, the cost of each film is 3-5 million US dollars, equivalent to 2 1 10,000-34 million RMB. The high cost may not have brought S2 success.
2065438+September 2008, Guo Song Electronics announced that it had reached an all-round strategic partnership with Zhongtian Micro, a subsidiary of Ali, for joint development. After the news was announced, the market once speculated that Xiaomi had given up the road of self-developed chips.
However, at 20 19, 1, Wang Teng, then the product director of Xiaomi (now the product director of Xiaomi Redmi), had an interaction with Weibo, a netizen. Questioned by a group of rice noodles, Wang Teng responded that S2 was still working, but it was not a department with a mobile phone.
With the launch of 20 19 Xiaomi's "mobile phone +AloT" dual-engine strategy, the impact also radiated to Xiaomi's chip research and development department.
20 19 April, an internal email sent by Lei Jun was exposed, and Xiaomi's chip once again became the focus after two years. According to the email, Guo Song Electronics Team, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Xiaomi, will be split into Nanjing Big Fish Technology, focusing on the research and development of IoT chips and solutions in the semiconductor field, while Guo Song will continue to focus on the research and development of mobile phone SoC chips.
Some people think that Xiaomi gave up the pine cone and chose the field of Internet of Things chips as a strategic focus, but others say that it is to alleviate the capital demand of chips and continue to cook chips with the money earned through lot. Although the debate continued, the market recognized the change of Xiaomi, and the share price of Xiaomi rose by 6.05% the next day.
Patent cross-licensing in chip industry is extremely complicated, and the appearance of a patent is often covered by patent claims without dead ends. Therefore, each chip company restricts each other and uses each other at the same time, which finally forms a high threshold situation in the chip field. Without a few years of patent precipitation, you are not qualified to do patent cross-licensing with others, and you will pay a high patent use cost if you don't do it.
At present, the global manufacturers of 5G baseband chips are Apple, Huawei and Samsung, and the independent suppliers of 5G baseband chips are only Ziguang Zhanrui of China, Qualcomm and MediaTek. In the current mobile phone market, 5G technology is still in the initial accumulation stage. At this time, authorizing other enterprises is tantamount to giving up development opportunities.
Therefore, not only for Xiaomi, but also for any competitive enterprise in the industry, it will strictly guard against 5G technology. It's hard for Xiaomi to get a piece of it. This should also be one of Lei Jun's biggest headaches.
Since it is impossible to complete reasonable patent mutual grant with existing 5G baseband manufacturers, it is up to you. However, it is obviously unrealistic to rely solely on Xiaomi to develop 5G baseband related technologies.
Xiaomi naturally realized that the problem was serious. Since the end of 2065438+2009, Xiaomi has invested in a number of RF companies through its Changjiang Xiaomi Fund, which should be to solve the patent problem of 5G baseband. All these companies have invested in patent rights as industry barriers.
According to public information, from June 20 19, in just eleven months, Changjiang Xiaomi Fund completed the investment and shareholding of four companies in the chip field/kloc-0.
Just as Xiaomi was catching up in the investment field, he lost a member of the chip field.
In April, 2020, Xiao Xiaolong, the founding partner of Guo Song Electronics and Big Fish Semiconductor, left his job and joined Ziguang Zhanrui, a domestic chip giant, as the head of the pan-connection business management department.
Then, on 30th of that month, Guo Song Electronics was repurchased by Xiaomi and renamed as Beijing Xiaomi Guo Song Electronics Co., Ltd., which was held by Xiaomi Communication Co., Ltd. 100%, and its legal representative became Lin Bin.
The timeline was extended to the beginning of June, that is, on June 4, 2020, Lin Bin stepped down as the legal representative and general manager of Beijing Xiaomi Software Technology Co., Ltd. and was replaced by Wang Chuan. Prior to this, Lin Bin had successively stepped down as the legal representatives of Beijing Xiaomi Electronic Software Technology Co., Ltd., Xiaomi affiliated company Youpin Information Technology Co., Ltd. and Shenzhen Xiaomi Information Technology Co., Ltd., and Wang Chuan took over the latter two companies.
Now Xiaomi's founder team has come to an end. /kloc-Six people who had a bowl of millet porridge with Lei Jun 0/0 years ago, now only Lin Bin, Hongfeng and Liu De are left.
On April 4, 20 10, on the first day of Xiaomi's construction, the start-up team drank a bowl of millet porridge and officially started construction. Lei Jun and Lin Bin were left with seven and six respectively.
As the soul of Xiaomi along the way, Lin Bin began to serve as the legal person of Pinecone Electronics when he left office. The information contained in it is intriguing. Is the surging S2 really about to be born? Can Xiaomi usher in the second bright moment after the release of S 1? The pace is already very close.
Half an hour after Weibo's "one win and nine losses" at the beginning of the article, Lei Jun sent another Weibo, which is a passage in Wang Guowei's "Words on Earth". Maybe S2 is also in the second or third world.
It coincides with the contrarian competition in the field of chips in the Sino-US trade war. Huawei has been sanctioned by the United States without a bottom line. Whether it is Xiaomi or domestic mobile phone manufacturers, as long as there is a breakthrough in core technologies, it will increase the right to speak at the enterprise, industry and even national level.
Perhaps one day, as the world's largest mobile phone market, China mobile phone manufacturers will no longer be subject to Qualcomm, Apple, Samsung and other manufacturers who have mastered the core technology of mobile phone hardware. By then, China will no longer be controlled by others, domestic manufacturers will become true friends, and Lei Jun's beautiful vision of "making fewer enemies and making more friends" will be realized.