Rebirth 08: Rise from copycat phones

Chapter 156 All-Network Baseband Chip

This is a dual-core product with a main frequency of 1.5GHZ and a 3-nanometer process. Logically speaking, it should be at the same technical level as the S8 60X46 series currently being developed by Qualcomm and the OMAP series of Texas Instruments.

But this thing is not easy to make, at least there is no hope of tape-out this year. Even if everything goes well, according to the planned schedule, it is estimated that tape-out can only be carried out around May or June next year... But whether the tape-out will be successful is actually an unknown... This kind of high technology can even be said to represent the top mobile phone SOC in the chip design industry. It is quite difficult to succeed in tape-out at one time. If the tape-out fails once, it will be delayed for a lot of time.

The competition between Zhiyun Technology and Apple is in full swing, so it is impossible to delay the press conference... Even a month's delay would mean a loss of tens or even hundreds of billions of Chinese yuan... It is impossible for Zhiyun Mobile to watch Apple monopolize the market for a month or even longer after releasing a new model in June.

Therefore, the chip selection for next year's new models will still be mainly based on Qualcomm S3's 8X60 series chips and Texas Instruments' OMAP46 series chips.

In fact, in order to allow this self-developed dual-core chip to be successfully launched on the market and not affect the existing C series and S series, Zhiyun Mobile also plans to launch a new high-end mobile phone series for this self-developed dual-core high-performance chip, tentatively named the A series.

In addition to this self-developed dual-core chip, Zhiyun Semiconductor actually also has a quad-core chip that is in the early stages of research and development. It uses a design with two large and two small cores, and is expected to use a more advanced 28-nanometer process that chip foundries are organizing technical research on. Of course, this thing is more difficult, and there are more problems to be solved. It is estimated that it will take several years to see it.

Zhiyun Semiconductor's mobile phone SOC chip design actually has many projects, not just the isolated S100 project... It also has more than just this one technology route. In fact, single-core technology route, dual-core technology route and quad-core technology route are all being promoted.

The core architecture technologies of these technical routes can also be extended to design more models of mobile phone SOCs.

比如现在的S100，就可以升级改进出来主频达到1GHZ的S101芯片以及后续的102、103芯片等等。

The same goes for dual-core and quad-core processors, both of which have certain technical scalability.

As long as the core framework is developed first, you can then improve the design based on this core framework, and then delete, modify and stack it.

After looking at these mobile phone SOC projects, Xu Shenxue went to the company's baseband chip R&D department!
Compared with the widespread development of SOC chips, which have achieved considerable results, the research and development of baseband is still in a rather embarrassing state.

There are both patent issues and technical issues.

The patent issue is a long-standing problem.

WCDMA is fine, the patent technology for this thing is relatively scattered, and many manufacturers have this thing...

Zhiyun Technology's strategic investment department has, through various efforts, either directly or indirectly acquired, obtained authorization, or adopted patent exchange methods, and has successively obtained a series of WCDMA patent technologies or authorizations.

Especially at the beginning of this year, Zhiyun Technology took advantage of the difficulties in Infineon's wireless business operations and provided timely assistance, or took advantage of the fire to rob, and directly acquired some of the company's 3G technology patents, and then obtained the WCDMA technology patents.

From a patent perspective, Zhiyun Technology can already develop its own WCDMA communication baseband based on these patent designs.

The patent problem of TD-SCDMA is not a big deal. This is a domestic technology and is relatively simple to use. Zhiyun Technology directly acquired a domestic company that participated in the research and development of TD technology and owned a large number of patents, thereby obtaining TD-SCDMA technology.

The above two methods are not that difficult, actually. There are many companies that have WCDMA and TD-SCDMA patents. Of course, having patents does not mean that they can make good baseband chips, so there are not many companies that can really succeed in the market!
But CDMA2000 is more difficult. Most of the technology is in the hands of Qualcomm, and the rest is in the hands of VIA Technologies, a subsidiary of VIA.

This is very difficult to deal with...Don't count on Qualcomm, they make a living from this thing and will never sell it no matter what.

There is hope with VIA. Zhiyun Technology is still negotiating with the company to obtain the license for the CDMA2000 patent technology.

However, VIA offered another plan: I see that you are so rich and you are so persistent in the patented technology of CDMA2000, why don’t you just acquire my subsidiary... My VIA Communications is very good, and the price is not expensive, only million US dollars, why don’t you consider it?

This caught Zhiyun Technology off guard... Zhiyun Technology only wanted patent licensing, but they didn't expect that they would directly acquire VIA's entire mobile phone chip design business department... What a pitfall!
The mobile phone chip business is not so easy these days. Only Qualcomm is doing well. Texas Instruments is now half dead and can only rely on Zhiyun's orders to survive, but it has fallen behind in the development of the new generation of chips. The remaining few are self-developed by manufacturers, such as Apple and Four Star... As for the other few, they are basically nowhere to be seen.

This is also the reason why VIA wants to sell its mobile phone chip business directly... For them, this is already a money-losing business, and they have to lose a lot every year.

It would be better to take advantage of the fact that there is Zhiyun Technology as a sucker, make a fortune and then exit the mobile phone chip business gracefully.

The senior officials in charge of Zhiyun Technology are also very conflicted about this... On the one hand, they only want patented technology, and don't want their messy mobile phone chip business. You know, VMware's mobile phone chip business is very bad now, and its technology is not as good as Zhiyun Semiconductor. Why buy it... Five hundred million US dollars, it might all go down the drain!
However, VMware has a lot of patents for various communications and chips, especially the CDMA2000 patents, which are extremely attractive to Zhiyun Technology.

Finally, the matter was reported to Xu Shenxue. When Xu Shenxue saw such a good thing, he didn't hesitate at all. If he missed this opportunity, he would miss it forever. He just bought it!
It's just 500 million US dollars, not much money...

Others might only consider things from a purely commercial perspective, but Xu Shenxue has never been...

He is playing with communication basebands and acquiring various patents, not simply to make money, but to avoid bottleneck problems. He hopes to obtain these patented technologies and then develop his own communication baseband chips.

So on the eve of the S10's launch, an offshore registered Hong Kong-funded company under Zhiyun Technology reached an acquisition agreement with VIA in a very low-key manner. After several rounds of negotiations between the two parties, Zhiyun Technology acquired VIA Communications, a subsidiary of VIA, for US$ million.

As a result, Zhiyun Technology also obtained the CDMA2000 patent!
By the way, Zhiyun Technology has also become one of the only two owners of CDMAD2000 technology in the world... As we all know, Qualcomm does not sell patents. They only license and charge high patent fees, or simply sell chips directly.

Zhiyun Technology is similar. After acquiring VMware Telecom, it did not even seek authorization and only sold CDMA2000 chips to the outside world... Of course, the price was also very expensive.

There is no way. The patent fee of CDMA2000 is the highest among the three network standards. Qualcomm is so unfair, and Zhiyun Technology cannot disrupt the market. We have to stay consistent!

Up to now, Zhiyun Technology has obtained relevant patents or authorizations for the three major network standards in the 3G era and can independently develop the corresponding communication baseband.

But...aside from the patent, this thing also has some troublesome technical issues.

The communication baseband, in addition to the traditional semiconductor design, is actually closely related to communication technology... Why is it easier for Warwick to do this? Because Warwick itself is engaged in communication base stations. They are insiders and have sufficient technology and experience, so they can get twice the result with half the effort.

Relatively speaking, it is more difficult to set up mobile phone companies such as Fruit, Six Star and Zhiyun... they lack technical background and experience in the field of communications.

At present, Zhiyun Technology's baseband design technology is a hodgepodge. It has developed part of its own research and development, and also acquired some CDMA2000 communication baseband chip design technology from VMware Communications.

But this is not enough...so Zhiyun Technology is thinking about acquiring a few more companies, such as Infineon...This company is having a hard time now. It used to sell 3G technology licenses and is now looking for buyers all over the world.

It’s a pity that Zhiyun Technology arrived a step too late. The company has now reached a relevant agreement with Intel.

There is no other choice but for Zhiyun Technology to look for other targets. Currently, it has set its sights on an American company called Icera, which is a 3G baseband company and has certain technical accumulation in 4G and owns some patents.

We are now in contact with this company to see if we can acquire it... The business operations of this company are not very good, but as long as the money is in place, the acquisition should not be a problem.

However, Zhiyun Technology is not willing to spend more money on this kind of acquisition simply for some chip design technology. If it has to spend too much money, it would be better to increase investment in self-research.

So the negotiation is still a bit difficult...

(End of this chapter)