Rebirth 08: Rise from copycat phones

Chapter 155 The First Domestic SOC
Weiku Electronics has always liked to imitate its big brother Zhiyun.

In fact, they rushed to release the Bluemax last winter, bringing a so-called super upgrade. In fact, the core has not changed much, it is still the 7200A chip, but it uses a 854-inch screen with a resolution of 480x... It is called the second -inch large-screen mobile phone, and by the way, the price has been further reduced to ...

Then, right after the release of Zhiyun S10, Xiaolan MAX2 was quickly released, which further adopted a 4.3-inch screen. Of course, the resolution is still not very good, but the SOC has been upgraded to a 7227 chip.

This chip is the previous C2 series chip. It is considered a mid-range chip in the second tier this year, but now it has been drastically reduced in price and is very cheap.

While other mobile phone manufacturers were still hesitating, Weiku Electronics followed Zhiyun Technology and took a piece of the large-screen market.

In addition to the Little Blue MAX series, Weiku Electronics also developed a lower-end large-screen sub-model in its own Little Blue M series, namely the Little Blue M MAX series.

First, in the spring, the 7225-inch Blue M MAX was released, which continued to use the super low-end chip...

However, they are also planning to release the BlueM MAX2 in the near future, which will use a four-inch screen and will use the 7200A chip...

Basically, WeCool Electronics has released a series of mobile phones, including the Little Blue series, Little Blue MAX series, Little Blue M series, Little Blue M MAX series and the corresponding WeCool series.

They have all moved towards larger screens... The Little Blue series and Little Blue M MAX have been upgraded to 3.7 inches, the Little Blue MAX series has been upgraded to 3.5 inches or even inches, and the Little Blue M series has been upgraded to inches!
Of course, although their screens are quite large, the resolution is not very good, so the technical difficulty is not great and the cost is not high. Nowadays, if the technical specifications of the screen are too high, domestic manufacturers will not be able to produce it in a short time!

That’s right, Weiku Electronics now uses domestically produced screens in its entire series... If you say the quality is definitely not that good, but the price is cheap.

Xu Shenxue is serious about supporting the domestic supply chain.

As long as you make the product, I will purchase it and then sell it!
It's not just the screen, other aspects are also true. Today's mobile phones from Weiku Electronics are actually highly localized.

At present, except for chips, memory and storage, which are still imported, the rest are basically domestic components. This is the main reason why Weiku Electronics' mobile phones can be so cheap but still have good hardware profits.

In fact, even SOC is preparing to use domestic products...

On June 20th, Xu Shenxue once again arrived at Zhiyun Semiconductor's R&D center.

Today he came here specially to see Zhiyun’s self-developed mobile phone SOC chip!
After arriving at the laboratory, Fu Zhengyang, general manager of Zhiyun Semiconductor, introduced a small chip in front of everyone to Xu Shenxue: "Mr. Xu, this is our self-developed S100 chip. After the previous tape-out failed, we made improvements and finally succeeded in the third tape-out. All aspects of performance data have reached our preset goals."

"This is our first domestically produced SOC!"

"Our chip adopts the basic architecture of ARMv7, and we designed our smart core architecture on this basis, and based on the smart core architecture, we designed this S100 chip!"

"The chip uses the current mainstream 256nm process, a single-core CPU, 800KB of L1.8 cache, and a default main frequency of MH. We tried to overclock it to GHZ during testing, but the heat was too severe, so overclocking was basically of no practical value."

"In terms of GPU, also known as graphics card, we tried our own GPU architecture at first, but found some problems with it. Then we obtained a permanent license for ARM's Mali architecture. We improved and upgraded it on this basis, built our new GPU architecture, and launched the AP50 GPU core."

"In terms of GPU, our progress is actually faster and smoother than that of CPU. At present, the performance is not inferior to the GPU integrated by Texas Instruments SOC, but there is still a small gap with Qualcomm's latest Snapdragon 2nd generation GPU!"

"We have also integrated memory controller, Bluetooth and WIFI modules and other functional modules on traditional mobile phone SOCs on S100!"

"In addition, we have integrated our self-developed power management chip into the SOC. The technical indicators of this power management chip have reached first-class standards. Before this, this technology has been used in our S10 flagship phone, and the overall performance is quite outstanding."

"At the same time, we have also integrated our self-developed intelligent image processing chip ISP into the chip. Our intelligent ISP core module has been deployed as a separate chip on the S10 flagship phone before, which can provide excellent intelligent camera functions!"

"We are trying to upgrade and improve the chip design, and we hope to launch a 1GHZ CPU core in a few months. The overall technical problems are not serious. At present, we mainly need to make subtle adjustments to the internal structure of the chip and conduct continuous testing!"

"Because we are also planning to integrate more functional cores on this chip, such as security cores and coprocessor cores, the various data that need to be processed will be more and more complex."

"The security module is used to process fingerprint data separately, speed up the speed and accuracy of fingerprint unlocking, and ensure that the fingerprint data is stored locally after being randomly encrypted to avoid the risk of leakage. This security module has also been used on S10 phones before!"

"The coprocessor core is mainly used to process various sensor data, ensuring that the phone can accurately and quickly process various sensor data and provide timely feedback to the system, increasing the smoothness of the experience!"

Xu Shenxue nodded slightly as he listened. To be honest, the technical level of this SOC exceeded his expectations... Although the core CPU of this chip had a slightly lower main frequency, its integration was very high, and it could even be said to have exceeded the current mainstream SOC.

A chip that integrates quite a number of special functions, such as a smart camera chip, which didn't exist before... Before this, no one had done what Zhiyun Technology did, and specially made a chip and a bunch of algorithms for smart photography... In order to realize this function of S10, Zhiyun Semiconductor also specially designed a smart camera chip.

The upgraded version currently being developed also plans to add a security module and a coprocessor core, and these two major functions are also what Zhiyun Technology itself needs!

For example, the fingerprint chip is mainly used for fingerprint data calculation and storage. It is also designed by Zhiyun Semiconductor. Only with this chip can safe and fast fingerprint unlocking be performed.

Others don’t even have fingerprint recognition, so they don’t need any special fingerprint chip.

If we talk about defects, there are some. The only defect is that this S100 chip does not have a communication baseband. Like Texas Instruments' OMAP series, it is a pure chip without a baseband.

For specific use, an external communication baseband is also required.

However, it is not a design flaw at present. The A4 chip of Apple also does not have a baseband chip! At the same time, the current A4 chip is just like that... The main frequency of this thing is only 800MHZ.

In terms of main frequency, it is actually at the same level as S100.

Of course, when measuring the quality of a chip, the main frequency is not the only criterion, nor is it even the main criterion.

你要说主频的话，高通骁龙二代的中低端芯片组7*30系列，即7230/76307030这三款芯片，主频也才800MHZ……但是没人认为7*30系列能够打得过A4芯片。

The people at Zhiyun Semiconductor don’t think their S100 chip can beat the A4 chip… Apart from other things, the power consumption and heat dissipation are not comparable…

At this time, Fu Zhengyang also mentioned the current defects of the S100 chip: "Because this is our first design, we still lack experience, and at the same time we have integrated a large number of functional cores, so the power consumption is a bit high and the heat dissipation is also a bit large!"

"Although we use a 45-nanometer process, our power consumption and heat dissipation levels are probably equivalent to Qualcomm's 65-nanometer process chips!"

Xu Shenxue said: "It's the first time, so it's normal to have some problems. It's not a big deal. In fact, I'm very surprised that you can do this!"

"I think this chip's performance should be about the same as the 7227, right?"

Xu Shenxue actually didn’t quite understand a lot of the professional terms… Many of them were even coined by Zhiyun’s engineers themselves… Without in-depth research, he couldn’t even understand them.

For example, in the technical parameter list drawn up by the engineer, there is an intelligent core architecture, followed by a bunch of various English abbreviations made up by the engineer... God knows what it means.

At this time, if the engineers came over, they would definitely talk to Xu Shenxue about a lot of professional terms.

Fu Zhengyang was different. After hearing Xu Shenxue's question, he said, "The main performance of the two is similar, but ours is more versatile. After all, we have inherited several additional functional cores, and the number of transistors is about 7227% more than the baseband-free version of 100... Well, it can be simply understood that the total computing power of our S7227 chip is greater than that of !"

"But the power consumption is a little worse. Specifically, the battery life may be shorter with the same configuration!"

"Then our heat generation is slightly higher. If we design a mobile phone, we may need a larger space for heat dissipation design!"

"If we don't take into account power consumption and heat generation, we can directly assume that the S100 chip has the same performance as the 7227/7627 chip!"

Xu Shenxue asked: "Does this mean that this chip can be used? Can it be directly installed in low-end and mid-range mobile phones?"

At this time, Fu Zhengyang said in a firm tone: "There is absolutely no problem using it!"

Xu Shenxue said: "In that case, I will ask Weiku Electronics to come over and take a look. Let Weiku make a new model first, and then launch it on the market to see how it goes!"

To be honest, Xu Shenxue didn't have much confidence in this chip, as it was the first one he made.

Although it seems okay during various tests, God knows what problems and troubles will be encountered during actual use, so Xu Shenxue cannot put this thing directly into the Zhiyun mobile phone series.

Even Weiku Electronics is planning to create a special sub-model... just in case there's a problem and that affects other models... If there's a real problem, they'll just cancel the entire sub-model product line.

Even Xu Shenxue did not intend to make money from this phone. He directly sold it at zero profit. His main purpose was to sell more and then obtain valuable data to modify the design based on the actual usage feedback from a large number of users.

These early users are all guinea pigs...so it is reasonable to give them some price discounts!
After looking at the S100 chip, Xu Shenxue went to look at the design plan of S100, an upgraded version of the S101 chip.

This thing is based on S100, but it improves the performance of the CPU and GPU, increases the CPU frequency to 1GHZ, integrates some unique functions, and finally reduces power consumption and heat dissipation.

However, the architecture has not changed much and is still the same as the Zhixin 1.0 version.

According to Fu Zhengyang, this 1010 chip is expected to be taped out in August or September. If everything goes well, it can be put into mass production around November...if Weiku or Zhiyun decides to adopt it.

The architecture that has undergone the biggest changes is actually the S200 chip that is currently under development.

The S200 chip is not a simple upgraded version of the S100, but is a dual-core architecture developed from the Zhixin 1.0 architecture... In other words, the S2.0 chip is actually a dual-core chip.

It is the same concept as the OMAP46 series dual-core chips currently developed by Texas Instruments and the 8X60 series dual-core chips of Qualcomm Snapdragon's third-generation.

Dual-core chips are the hottest and most mainstream future SOC concept... Although no mobile phone SOC manufacturer has yet developed it, most of them are working on it, including Qualcomm, Texas Instruments, Four Star, Fruit and even Zhiyun.

Given the difficulty, high cost, and low cost-performance ratio in significantly increasing single-core frequency, engineers around the world have unanimously chosen dual-core solutions to continue advancing technology... This is a similar concept whether it is a mobile phone SOC or a computer CPU.

This chip is the one that Zhiyun Semiconductor has prepared for its own Zhiyun mobile phone.

(End of this chapter)