OPPO is expected to launch its own AP chip in 2023. It is reported that Shanghai Zheku, an IC design subsidiary of OPPO, has started the research and development of application processors and single chips for mobile phone systems. It is expected that the first AP chip will be launched in 2023, and OPPO expects to launch a self-developed AP chip in 2023.
OPPO is expected to launch the self-developed AP chip 1 202 1 65438+2 in 2023. In February, China's smart phone brand OPPO officially released its first self-developed neural network processor (NPU)——Mariana X, which was built by TSMC's 6nm advanced technology and was specially used to improve the image processing performance.
In fact, once Mariana X chip appeared, it won the praise of many people inside and outside the industry. At present, Mariana X has been used by OPPO for its high-end mobile phones Find X5 and Find X5 Pro. Since OPPO has embarked on the road of self-developed chips, Mariana X is undoubtedly a good opening work. What OPPO really wants to achieve, or the biggest ambition, is to hope that it can have the strength to independently develop high-end SoC chips like Apple, Samsung and Huawei.
According to media reports in Taiwan Province, China on April 5th, according to industry sources, following the advent of Mariana X, Shanghai Zheku, a chip design subsidiary of OPPO, has been developing mobile phone AP (application processor) and SoC. It is estimated that in 2023, OPPO can launch the first self-developed mobile phone AP, which is manufactured by TSMC's 6nm advanced technology. In 2024, OPPO is expected to launch the first mobile phone SoC integrating self-developed AP and modem, which will still be manufactured by TSMC's 4nm advanced technology.
According to industry analysis, although OPPO's first self-developed 4nm process SoC may not be comparable to Qualcomm and MediaTek, it can be used in low-end mobile phone product lines first, and then gradually improve the penetration rate of self-developed SoC in its own mobile phone product line.
On March 24th, "mobile phone chip expert" broke the news again in Sina Weibo. OPPO invested10 billion yuan, and thousands of chip designers and researchers spent more than two years developing mobile phone processors and baseband chips in Shenzhen, Shanghai and Beijing. The government should give OPPO a lot of subsidies and plan to adopt TSMC's 6nm and 5nm processes. "Master of mobile phone chips" believes that OPPO's first self-developed mobile phone processor has the opportunity to stream in the second half of 2023 and install it on its own mobile phone products in 2024.
Now open official website of Zheku Technology, and you can see that the company has released many positions for job seekers to choose from, as well as information about university recruitment. Zheku is open to social recruitment (including internal recruitment), and its job categories cover digital design, analog/RF, system architecture, chip verification, hardware integration, test development, software development, algorithm, product strategy, project management, business empowerment, IT, etc.
And for the university campus recruitment, there are chips, algorithms, software, testing, products and IT*** six categories of jobs. In short, OPPO's thirst for chips and related talents.
What the outside world can be sure of now is that OPPO is seriously making chips-SoC chips with extremely high technical threshold. Arguably, even if it does not develop its own chips, but relies on Qualcomm and MediaTek for a long time, it is not difficult for OPPO to maintain its position as the top five mobile phone manufacturers in the world and the top four mobile phone manufacturers in China.
However, at the 20021Future Science and Technology Conference held by OPPO, CEO Chen Mingyong said that self-developed chips are an inevitable choice at the strategic level of OPPO, and problems must be solved through key technologies. Without the underlying core technology, enterprises have no future. "Self-developed chips are destined to be a bumpy road. We will continue to invest resources and use thousands of teams to make self-developed chips in a down-to-earth manner, insisting that Qingshan will not relax. "
Xiaomi began to develop its own chip from 20 14. 20 17 February, Xiaomi officially released the first self-developed mobile phone SoC chip 2855438+0. This kind of low-end chip is manufactured by TSMC's 28 nm process and has not been popular in the market. As the second-generation mobile phone SoC of Xiaomi, 澎湃 S2 (using TSMC 16nm process technology) is still "only known by its name, but not by its shape".
It is said that by the end of 20 19, the S2 streamer I * * * failed six times, with a loss of tens of millions of yuan each time. However, in March of 20021,Xiaomi released the first self-developed ISP chip, 2855438+0. 澎湃 C 1 is a chip that can't be smaller, and it is also a chip that consumers will not pay attention to at all. Xiaomi spent two years tackling key problems for 2855438+0, and invested10.40 billion yuan. 202 1 12, Xiaomi released the first self-developed power management chip 2855438+0.
This chip took 18 months, and the four R&D centers worked together and spent hundreds of millions. If OPPO can release the first self-developed advanced technology mobile phone processor in 2023 as rumored, it will greatly surpass Xiaomi.
In 2009, Huawei's first mobile phone chip adopted 180nm process; 20 12, the second mobile phone chip adopts 40nm process; In 20 14, Huawei released the first Kirin chip with 28nm process; It was not until 20 18 that Huawei released the first 7nm Kirin chip. In 2020, Huawei released a 5nm process chip. In contrast, OPPO's first NPU chip is manufactured by TSMC's 6nm process; The mobile phone AP and mobile phone SoC currently under research will also entrust TSMC to OEM below 6nm. OPPO's self-developed chip has chosen the advanced process technology below 7nm from the beginning, one of the reasons should be that it hopes to catch up with mainstream manufacturers as much as possible. OPPO can have such ambitions, which is quite admirable.
On June 5438+ 10, 2022, Li Jie, the president of Yijia China District, told the media that the global mobile phone shipments of Oujia Group in 200210 were about 200 million units, of which the global shipments in 200210 were120,000 units, double the number in 2020. Combined with the data released by Omdia, the global mobile phone shipments of OPPO and realme in 20021reached 654.38+922 million units, accounting for 14% of the market share, lagging behind Samsung and Apple and surpassing Xiaomi.
Among them, OPPO 202/KOOC-0/global mobile phone shipments/KOOC-0/.34/KOOC-0/100 million, an increase of 27.9% compared with 2020/KOOC-0/49 million mobile phone shipments; In 20021year, the global mobile phone shipments of Realme were 5,865,438+million units, an increase of 48.6% compared with the shipments of 3,965,438+million units in 2020. It may be estimated here that the global mobile phone shipments of OPPO and its two sub-brands plus +realme should reach a new high in 2022, and may even surpass the previous global mobile phone shipments of Huawei+Glory of 240 million units.
According to the data provided by Cinno research, the market share of OPPO+ One Plus +realme in China is as high as 24.5%, which has occupied the first place.
Every year, the global mobile phone shipments exceed 200 million units, and the revenue reaches several hundred billion yuan. With such a large market share and such a high revenue scale, once it breaks out in the field of chip design, I believe OPPO's position in the mobile phone market will only be more stable. Moreover, OPPO can also enter a broader market such as tablet computers, notebook computers and smart TVs, thus expanding market share.
Compared with Xiaomi's 2855438+0, 2855438+0 and 2855438+0, it seems difficult to have the following comparison. OPPO self-developed chips are probably more worth looking forward to.
OPPO is expected to start the research and development of self-developed AP chip 2 in 2023, which has become the top priority of the industry. Both consumers and mobile phone manufacturers attach great importance to related issues. Now chip research and development is no longer the monopoly of Apple, Samsung and Huawei. OPPO, glory and other manufacturers have also invested huge costs. After several R&D, they successfully obtained self-developed chips such as Mariana X and AI ISP, which further enhanced the R&D strength of domestic manufacturers.
Recently, it was reported that Shanghai Zheku, an IC design subsidiary of OPPO, has started the research and development of application processors and mobile phone system single chips. It is expected that the first AP chip will be launched in 2023 and the first mobile phone SoC will be launched in 2024.
(@IT House broke the news that OPPO will launch the first AP chip in 2023)
For such speculation, some netizens expressed doubts, while others were full of expectations. In fact, OPPO has rich technical accumulation in the field of chips. For example, Mariana X released at the future technology conference last year, whether it is front-end design, back-end design, IP design, memory architecture, algorithm, supply chain flow, etc. , completed by the OPPO chip team. And the actual performance of this chip has not let us down. Judging from the imaging effect of the first-time mobile phone OPPO Find X5 Pro, it has obvious bonus effect on night scene video, especially the details such as excessive darkness, which is much clearer than the same price mobile phone.
(OPPO Find X5 Pro imaging performance)
Not only that, Mariana X also made OPPO Find X5 Pro the first smart phone in the industry to support 4K ultra-clear night shooting through powerful algorithms, which broke the limitation of traditional mobile phones on night scene quality with super HDR dynamic range of up to 20bit and pixel-level AI noise reduction processing, and also provided reference for future flagship mobile phones in night scene performance.
At the same time, Mariana X's powerful algorithm also acts on the imaging of third-party software, which makes the image quality of Tik Tok, Aauto faster and other apps closer to the original camera, omitting the steps that need to be uploaded repeatedly.
(The picture quality of Tik Tok, Aauto Quicker and other apps under Mariana X is closer to the original camera.)
OPPO can develop chips with such excellent performance, which is inseparable from the investment in scientific research in these years. As early as 2065 438+09 OPPO INNO DAY, it was announced that OPPO had officially entered the deep-water R&D zone, and it was established that mobile phones would remain the first entrance and control center in the 5G era.
At the future science and technology conference held thereafter, the release of products such as scrolling screen OPPO X 202 1 and folding screen OPPO Find N brought amazing operating experience to consumers in different forms from conventional mobile phones. It is worth mentioning that some bloggers broke the news that OPPO will start commercial scrolling screens, and other manufacturers are also preparing or will officially release them next year.
At the same time, OPPO is also committed to patent research and development in different fields. By March 3, 20221,OPPO has applied for more than 77,000 patents worldwide and granted more than 38,000 patents worldwide. Among them, the number of invention patent applications exceeded 69,000, accounting for 90% of all patent applications. Such a rich patent reserve also makes people look forward to the performance of OPPO's second chip.
Generally speaking, under the rich patent reserves and strong R&D strength, the first self-developed chip Mariana X, the scrolling screen OPPO X 202 1 and the folding screen OPPO Find N released by OPPO have made consumers feel refreshed and changed the industry structure more or less.
The first AP chip and the first mobile phone SoC pointed out in the news are also developed on these bases and are progressing steadily in an orderly manner. This inevitably makes us look forward to OPPO's insights and accomplishments in chip research and development, and what surprises it will bring us in the future.
OPPO is expected to launch self-developed AP chip 3 in 2023. Recently, according to the related news of the semiconductor industry, OPPO has made new moves recently after launching the first self-developed image NPU chip last year. Its IC design subsidiary, Shanghai Zheku, is currently developing AP application processors and mobile phone SoC chips. It is expected that the first AP chip with 6nm technology will be launched in 2023, and the mobile phone SoC chip integrating AP and Modem will be launched after the technology is mature in 2024, using TSMC's 4nm technology.
(OPPO independently develops chips)
Speaking of mobile phone SoC, that is, processors similar to Kirin 9000 and Snapdragon 8 Gen 1, I believe everyone already knows it very well. As for the AP chip, the frequency that may be seen on the Internet is not too high, but it actually belongs to one of the core chips of mobile phones. The full name of AP chip is "application processor", which is mainly used to run operating systems and application software, such as Android and commonly used apps. Together with baseband and RF chips, it constitutes the three core components of mobile phones, and it also needs deep technical accumulation to design.
(Snapdragon Generation 8 1 processor)
Previously, at the Future Science and Technology Conference of June 65438+February 65438+April last year, OPPO had officially launched the first NPU chip Mariana MariSilicon X dedicated to self-developed images. It is understood that the whole design scheme and technology of this chip are independently developed by the OPPO chip design team, and the whole team includes design, digital verification, back-end integration and other departments. It can be seen that OPPO is serious about making the core.
On the basis of the successful mass production of NPU chips, if you want to make AP chips, I believe OPPO also has its own research strength.
(Mariana X image chip)
OPPO's Mariana X chip still has something. It is the world's first NPU dedicated to 6nm images of mobile terminals, and its AI computing power is as high as 18 trillion times per second, which is higher than Apple A 15. The image supports 4K ultra-clear HDR night scene output. In all fairness, although this image-specific NPU chip looks less "tall" than SoC, it is undeniable that it brings a better camera experience to the new machine.
For example, when the new machine OPPO Find X5 Pro equipped with Mariana X went on the market, the comprehensive imaging strength was greatly improved. Find X5 Pro adopts 50 megapixel dual main camera, 13 megapixel telephoto lens and Hasselblad image, and13 channel color temperature sensor, with more accurate color control and lower photo noise, allowing users to make movies at will.
(OPPO Find X5 Pro)
Through the following real shot proofs, we can also see that the film production rate of Find X5 Pro is very high. Good performance in all kinds of scenes. 4K night HDR video recording, light suppression in place, real and natural look and feel of the picture, well-preserved details. Whether taking photos during the day or at night, the photos are quite pure and natural in color. It can be seen that the self-developed image chip is very helpful for the photo experience.
(photo sample)
Therefore, it is necessary for mobile phone manufacturers to develop such image chips or AP chips themselves. According to industry analysis, OPPO expects to launch a 4-nanometer mobile phone SoC chip in two years. Although the performance design may not be as good as that of Qualcomm and MediaTek, I will try it in the low-end mobile phone product line first, and then gradually improve the penetration rate of my SoC chip. This is at least the first step. I have to say that OPPO's efforts in chip research and development are worthy of recognition. More domestic self-developed chips are worth waiting to see.