The issuance of 4G licenses has brought a bright future to the industry. Licensing not only marks the beginning of the new era of 4G, but also the "fruitfulness" of China's technological accumulation in the 3G era. A few chip makers who are floating up and down, or will complete a new "mission must be reached" under the new time node.
Towards a new process
With the TD-LTE industry mature and commercial promotion, TD-LTE chips and terminals need to further improve performance in the future, and TD-LTE chips will gradually evolve to 28nm.
The relative maturity of the entire industry chain is a necessary consideration for 4G licensing. Although the chip link is still limited by the multi-mode multi-frequency challenge, an obvious fact is that the improvement of process maturity is the key to breaking through this bottleneck. Zheng Caiji, chairman of Datang Telecom Group, told the China Electronics News that from the chip point of view, 4G terminal chips will be gathered in the 28nm process, and SMIC's 28nm technology is mature enough to meet the requirements of 4G development. match. It is hoped that China's 4G terminal chips will be stable in the 28nm process for a long time, because the longer the industrialization platform, the better the terminal supply capacity.
In the early 3G era, multi-mode TD chip manufacturers basically adopted 65nm or even 90nm process, resulting in high cost and power consumption, which has hindered the development of TD-SCDMA. However, with the advent of the TD-LTE era, with the increase of multi-mode multi-frequency baseband and platform chip complexity, as well as the increasing cost and power requirements, if the development of TD-LTD chip is to learn lessons, then obviously The 28nm process will be the main technology adopted by future chip manufacturers.
Liu Jitang, vice president of Lianxin Technology, also stressed that for the TD-LTE chip market, in the early stage of industrial development, data terminals based on 40nm process chips can meet the needs of TD-LTE applications. With the TD-LTE industry mature and commercial promotion, TD-LTE chips and terminals need to further improve performance in the future, and TD-LTE chips will gradually evolve to 28nm to provide a better user experience. The quad-core five-mode ten-frequency TD-LTE chip being developed by Lianxin is expected to be launched at the end of the year and will adopt the 28nm process.
Create new space
The LTE FDD license has not been issued yet, and the change of China Mobile's TD-LTE terminal strategy has brought a “space†for domestic chips.
Among the 4G licenses, China Mobile, China Unicom and China Telecom all obtained TD-LTE network licenses, and LTE FDD licenses have not been issued yet. This has brought a “space†for domestic chips. Yang Hao, secretary-general of the TD Industry Alliance, pointed out that domestic enterprises are relatively short of LTE FDD due to the support of China Mobile's TD-SCDMA market. Therefore, TD-LTE can be developed to meet customer needs. When the degree of LTE FDD spectrum needs to be used, the LTE FDD standard will be introduced, which will give domestic enterprises a ET FDD course for a period of time to have the ability to provide services for both LTE FDD and TD-LTE.
In addition, the change of China Mobile's TD-LTE terminal strategy also brings benefits. It is understood that China Mobile's TD-LTE terminal strategy has undergone major adjustments, no longer adhere to the "five-mode ten-frequency" hard target, and will introduce "three-mode" products early next year. Yang Wei pointed out that this has greatly reduced the technical threshold, and can save 4G chips and patent fees, and domestic chip manufacturers will also have more room for development. At the same time, this will help China Mobile to push the "three-mode" thousand yuan intelligent machine to speed up the popularity of 4G. Li Chunchao, vice president of Marvell Global, said that Marvell's TD-LTE/TD-SCDMA/GSM three-mode chip solution will be launched in the first quarter. It is expected that there will be a large number of thousand-yuan 4G mobile phones in China in the first half of next year.
For the needs of the other two major operators, Li Chunchao pointed out that China Telecom has different needs for 4G terminals, and products such as data cards do not require CDMA. If it is a smart terminal, the requirements for 4G mobile phones are compatible with FDD-LTE, CDMA2000, and GSM. Marvell's solution is a "dual-chip" solution. For example, with its PXA1088 LTE and external CDMA modem, Marvell will also discuss with China Telecom. Cooperation. "China Unicom's current 4G terminal solution has little difference from the international mainstream FDD operators. Marvell's current five-mode platform can meet its needs." Li Chunchao further pointed out that "At present, Marvell's focus is to strengthen cooperation with China Mobile, on-demand. And promote our solutions to the market on time."
Need to pay attention to, although domestic manufacturers can temporarily "wind", but focus on the long-term or early deployment of LTE convergence and evolution. "TD-LTE and LTE FDD are largely fused. The specifications of the two technologies above the L2 layer are the same, but the structure of the underlying frame is different. In the long run, whether it is 4G or 5G in the future. It will be balanced on both TD-LTE and LTE FDD platforms. From a chip perspective, development work should be synchronized with new technologies and standards." Zhang Lu, director of mobile products at Marvell, said, "LTE is accelerating evolution, LTE- A will start commercialization in North America and Europe next year, and Chinese chip manufacturers should also make corresponding technical reserves and product development."
Raising new challenges
Highly integrated smartphone chips with powerful data and multimedia capabilities will be the main direction of market development. In addition, there is a need to continuously improve power consumption, area and cost.
TD-LTE chips are mainly divided into two types of modems and intelligent platforms. Zhang Lu mentioned that modem chips are mainly used in high-end smartphones, wireless network cards, Mi-Fi, Dongle and the Internet of Things; single-chip solutions are used in smart terminals such as mobile phones and tablet computers. Although the product will appear in these forms, the technology will continue to evolve.
In addition to requiring baseband and RF to support multi-mode multi-frequency, from the perspective of development, TD-LTE intelligent terminals also need application processors with powerful data and multimedia processing capabilities. Zhang Weili, general manager of MediaTek China, said that in the 4G era, the outbreak of data traffic and the development of smart phone multimedia have become the mainstream features. Smartphone chips with powerful data and multimedia capabilities will be the main direction of market development.
In addition, the reduction in power consumption and the reduction in chip area are also "the only way." Some experts pointed out that on the one hand, compared with 2G and 3G technologies, LTE high-speed data transmission processing and unique antenna technology need to consume more power consumption, but the user's requirements for battery life of terminal equipment are constantly increasing; On the other hand, the complexity of the technology also increases the area of ​​the LTE chip to a certain extent. As the frequency band supported by the terminal increases, the receiving channel that the radio frequency chip needs to provide also increases, and the frequency band increases the number of RF front-end devices. Multi-band introduction will increase the cost of terminal RF front-end devices. However, the thinness of the terminal equipment and the fashion of the design require the compression of the motherboard area as much as possible. Power consumption and area have become important challenges.
The pressure of terminal prices will continue to shift to the chip industry. SoC system integration is the key, and it needs to integrate and digest the surrounding chip technology, which significantly raises the threshold. Li Chunchao said that in the 4G era, chip manufacturers should also pay attention to providing turnkey solutions, which is a major trend in the future.
In addition, the 4G market trend is for the global market. "The voice technology solution is also an important part of the development of TD-LTE mobile phones. From the commercial experience of LTE FDD, smart phones with voice and broadband data capabilities are the most satisfactory terminal forms for users." Liu Jitang mentioned, "So, terminal manufacturers The choice of platform will also shift from the original single market to the global operators. As a chip manufacturer, it is necessary to keep up with the evolution of communication technology standards."
New pattern of achievement
The future competition pattern will undergo major changes, and Chinese chip makers will rise rapidly, especially in the 4G low-end market, which will be ahead of European and American chip manufacturers.
After the 4G firing guns, a new round of market qualifying was also kicked off. From the point of view of the showdown, Li Chunchao said that among the domestic and foreign manufacturers of LTE chips, foreign manufacturers have advantages in LTE FDD and WCDMA technologies, but they have not accumulated enough in TD-SCDMA. Some of the strengths of companies in China are in the field of TD-SCDMA technology, and much work has to be done on LTE FDD and WCDMA technologies.
Liu Jitang said that the TD-SCDMA chip market is a market segment that international giants are not very fancy. Compared with domestic manufacturers, TD-SCDMA is a competitive market that is rare for domestic chip companies. In the evolution of TD-SCDMA to TD-LTE, the international giants began to fully awaken and entered the field of TD-LTE chips, and achieved the performance of the latter. The pressure of full-scale competition faced by domestic chip companies in the 4G era is very huge.
The competition of leading manufacturers in the TD-LTE chip market will become more intense next year. From the market point of view, Qualcomm has obvious advantages, but recently it has "converged" due to China's anti-monopoly investigation and China Mobile's terminal chip strategy. Marvell's LTE single-chip platform is also eye-catching in related testing and bidding. Recently, several MiFi terminals and smart phones based on Marvell's 4G platform passed China Mobile's OT test and became the first 4G terminals to be launched. Intel said that the 22nm-based mobile phone chipset will also be available, which will show the advantages of the process. Broadcom is also a frequent action, has launched a five-mode LTE chip, the volume is 35% smaller than other solutions in the industry.
Foreign manufacturers are stepping up their layout, and domestic manufacturers are not forgetting to arrange their troops. Haisi, Spreadtrum, Lianxin Technology, MediaTek and other manufacturers are all sprinting. MediaTek's upcoming LTE Modem will support both LTE FDD and TDD-LTE. In the first half of next year, the quad-core or eight-core AP+4G Modem solution will enter mass production, and the final 4G SoC will be mass-produced in the second half of next year. . Lianxin Technology will also push the five-mode SoC smartphone chip at the end of the year.
"In the 4G era, domestic companies need to break through the multi-mode communication technology accumulation, huge R&D capital investment, leading chip design process mastery, intelligent chip company brand cultivation, operating system technology grasp, multimedia application technology innovation and other multiple barriers." Liu Jitang further pointed out "Because of the advantages of cost and rapid market response, the future competition pattern will undergo major changes, and Chinese chip manufacturers will rise rapidly, especially in the 4G low-end market, which will be ahead of European and American chip manufacturers."
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