How can domestic mobile phone manufacturers break through and develop in the future when facing the "divide in chip manufacturing"?
2023-07-04
Against the backdrop of increasing external pressure, achieving independent and controllable control of the mobile phone industry chain has become increasingly urgent. Domestic mobile phone manufacturers have adjusted their layout rhythm and reorganized their chip business. Recently, Huawei has launched a large-scale talent recruitment plan around key technologies such as chips. Honor chip related affiliated companies have also emerged. Shen Ziyu, Chairman of Xingji Meizu Group, publicly stated that the company has opened up the entire upstream and downstream industry chain of the automotive machinery ecosystem, and has achieved an internal industrial closed-loop of integrating its own chips, platform, system, and ecosystem. At the same time, as the level of smartphone intelligence continues to improve, the barriers to chip making are also constantly increasing. Xiang Ligang, Chairman of the Information Consumption Alliance, bluntly stated, "Domestic mobile phone manufacturers have entered a 'chip making watershed'." So, in this context, do mobile phone manufacturers currently have the technical strength to solve chip problems, and how can they further break through and develop? The difficulty of making cores is self-evident. The pressure and motivation began many years ago, when Chinese mobile phone manufacturers suffered heavy losses due to chips, but as a result, they embarked on the path of developing their own chips. To address the issue of chip controllability, many domestic mobile phone manufacturers have launched breakthroughs. Lenovo and Huawei have both expanded their chip investment and layout, and vivo and OPPO have also embarked on the path of chip self-development. The change originates from the transformation of the core making path. After years of exploration, more mobile phone manufacturers have realized that it is difficult to directly challenge the core of mobile phones - SoC integrated chips, so they have shifted their research and development focus to small chips. For example, mobile phone manufacturers such as Xiaomi and vivo are gradually accumulating experience from small chips such as ISP and DSP, mainly focusing on power management, communication RF, Bluetooth, imaging ISP, and other aspects of layout. In terms of technical barriers, compared to SoC chips with higher complexity, process, and chip cost, ISP chips currently have relatively low entry barriers, fewer technical difficulties, and lower investment requirements, with a high fault tolerance rate. At the same time, although mobile phone manufacturers find it difficult to control the upgrade rules of ISP modules, once they have autonomy in their core technologies, they can quickly achieve breakthroughs in imaging and other systems and improve customization capabilities, thus forming differentiation. The shift from focusing on integrated chips to breaking through one by one with specialized small chips also reflects the current situation of domestic mobile phone manufacturers making chips. At present, mobile phone manufacturers that have entered the chip field on a large scale have maintained caution in chip manufacturing. For example, Xiaomi is looking for cuts in image processing, ISP chips for induction control, and Vivo is deeply bound to SoC manufacturer MediaTek, starting with small chips for imaging and power, "said Xiang Ligang. On the path of self-developed chips by mobile phone manufacturers, greater challenges come from the upstream material and component fields. The high-end Stepper required by domestic wafer manufacturers is partly imported. At present, Changchun Institute of Optics and Fine Mechanics and Centrum Optoelectronics are stepping up their research and development, but it still takes time. The development of domestic mobile phone manufacturers' core manufacturing capabilities still relies on the improvement of supply chain adaptation. The technology related to mobile phone chips is mainly in the hands of a few enterprises, which means that in order for domestic enterprises to achieve technological breakthroughs, they need to invest heavily in research and development, as well as long-term talent cultivation
Edit：Hou Wenzhe Responsible editor：WeiZe
Source：Securities Daily
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