Smart phone "core" war: Qualcomm or missed the best time

Perhaps the smartphone sector's chip wars are what smartphone makers have long awaited. In the past, the millet mobile phone is a Qualcomm camp in a member of the Reggie, the first generation of millet mobile phone using Qualcomm 1.5G dual-core chip, offering the "strongest performance" smart phone banner, the smart phone chip parameters of the original concept of a more background to the consumer before. Before the advent of the millet mobile phone, Qualcomm has been well-known in the industry, all kinds of high-end smart phones are almost all equipped with a "high pass core." Millet mobile phone listing soon after March 2013 Qualcomm in China officially released its flagship mobile processor Snapdragon series of Chinese name "骁丽 Dragon", a great deal of intel inside. After 1.5, Millet again released new products, but unexpectedly "defection": despite the main performance card, But the TD version of the Millet 3 uses Nvidia's tegra1.8g four nuclear chip; The WCDMA version still uses Qualcomm's products, the model for most mobile phone manufacturers at present high-end products selected 骁丽 Dragon 8,004 nuclear 2.3G Products, two version of the product pricing the same. And the low-end products of millet red meter mobile phones are selected MediaTek MTK products. The move seems to be a Qualcomm, the same pricing will Qualcomm and Nvidia at the same starting line, and the adoption of MediaTek let a lot of people on Qualcomm's "Price-performance" produced a hint of doubt. Qualcomm is still the absolute hegemon in today's smartphone chip market, it is easy to see in the Business value consolidation chart that Qualcomm has assembled 90% of the top 10 manufacturers of global shipments (Huawei is not listed), but as the smartphone market matures, other chip makers are catching up, are constantly challenging the status of Qualcomm's absolute monopolies; an important demand for handset makers is also being highlighted: with the declining profitability, balancing major components suppliers has become an important strategic consideration. A smart phone "core" of the battle is bound to be launched. The rise of a strong competitor this time the fuse is MediaTek. First, the introduction of the red rice mobile phone, not only to make 799 yuan of low price to earn enough eyeballs, but also let MediaTek become a spokesperson for cost-effective, although most of the industry manufacturers in low-end products many of the use of MediaTek products, but the first time the "core" of the old cottage to create a cost-effective "core Have to say that Lei and his millet has a rotten to the magic of the marketing magic. said that was millet power Qualcomm became a High-performance spokesperson, perhaps not for the past, and today the advent of red rice millet and a great deal of the potential of the red MediaTek. Then, MediaTek grabbed the eight-core processor before Qualcomm, and mocked Samsung's Exynos5410 chip as a fake eight-core MT6592. This, in turn, sparked a mockery of Qualcomm's senior vice president, Anand Chandrasekher, who made clear in an interview that Qualcomm would not consider the eight-core product in the near future, and that the pursuit of a central number was silly and pointless, and then Qualcomm unleashed a highly provocative video--the Guitar Hero gameThe irony is that MediaTek does not use eight keys to play the 4-button music, is a device and waste. It is not important that MediaTek's eight core is stupid, but that it is eating away at Qualcomm's share of the low-end market, and that, in the high-end market, Qualcomm's American fellow-Intel has long coveted it. But Intel, who has been late for two years on the SOC layout, has been very low-key, changing its former dominance in the PC arena, as Intel knows that it has to be hard to be strong in mobile terminals: power consumption and integration are two big challenges that Intel cannot avoid. While Intel's assessment has repeatedly shown the power and performance advantages of its own products, the company's ZTE, Lenovo and Motorola are not the international first-line smartphone brands and the products with Intel chips are not many and reflect some of the real problems of the moment. But Intel's ambitions will never stop there. In the face of a few mobile phone products, Chen Rongkun, general manager of Intel Mobile Communications Division China, said: "When a company can provide the best products for the market, the market will naturally choose, so our goal is very clear." Sword refers to the industry leader of Intel still has the confidence: including in the process technology leading technology, 22nm products are about to enter the final product, and currently including Qualcomm and MediaTek, most of the manufacturers are still using the 28nm process. In addition to its own wafer factory Intel can also guarantee stable and reliable capacity, prior to Qualcomm has exposed the generation of factory break and new technology products low yield, this is consistent with Qualcomm's continuous operation mode of the wafer-free. And in the investment, Intel has always been willing to spend money, money is also conducive to rapid completion of the short board, for Infineon Wireless services and the Italian-French Ericsson satellite navigation business acquisition helps to complement Intel's integration capabilities. Facing the competitor's vengeance, James says Qualcomm is ready: "Both the nuclear and the nanoscale are not determinants, and Qualcomm's strength lies in its ability to synthesize." CPU is of course very important, but unlike the PC is: the smartphone CPU on the overall experience of the contribution rate is only 15%, followed by GPU graphics processor, DSP digital signal processors and RF (RF) and other aspects, in addition to multimedia capabilities are also critical, but also power management capabilities. Qualcomm is currently the strongest in these areas and is well able to work together on several key components. "The increasing complexity of the situation Qualcomm in the advantages of the product is self-evident, MTK's eight nuclear products can PK Qualcomm's product performance, in fact, many people are aware of the spread of the MTK through a lot of tricks to battle the low-end market: for example, the processor requires a very high burst function, MediaTek is through software implementation. But for the low-end users, it is not important whether the real burst or the software makes the picture "look" is continuous. What is important is that handset makers need to rebalance the status of their core component suppliers, because the smartphone market is maturing and the industry's profit margins are falling, so handset makers are also strategically considering that competition and alternativecan guarantee not to be threatened by key component manufacturers. A lot of companies from the PC to move into smartphones are familiar with this reason, once Intel inside made many PC manufacturers helpless, so that the vast majority of the industry's profits into the company's pockets rather than the machine manufacturers. Huawei's approach is most representative in handset makers, the late arrival of the Huawei terminal in high-end products almost all of its own wholly-owned subsidiary Heiss produced chips, although for the SI chip has many from the industry and even users of the slot, but Huawei insists on Heiss, constantly in their own products on the running-in. Huawei's intentions are clear: relying on a price war to survive in the equipment market and become Huawei, the world's first-line manufacturer, is aware of the importance of cost control, followed by a key component supply for smartphones that directly determines the cost of the final product and the user experience. This can also be confirmed by Samsung's recent moves: Samsung's 2013 2nd-quarter earnings show that smartphone profits are close to the ceiling, with limited room for growth, and that in an effort to boost earnings the trio plans to spend about 12 billion dollars this year to upgrade and invest in chip devices, Profit promotion depends on component business. Samsung has always had its own "core"--exynos, and in a variety of flagship products (including the previous big hot Note2 and S3 and other high-end products) on the test water. Approaching, such as Samsung and Huawei, are ideally equipped to have their own chip products, guarantee profit margins, and boost their voice in key component manufacturers such as Qualcomm. In addition, some manufacturers have adopted another approach to restrict the key component manufacturers, in addition to the aforementioned millet, ZTE is a typical example. ZTE's mobile phone uses Qualcomm, MTK, Intel and Nvidia's many chip products, its intention is to achieve a balance. Whether the Huawei and Samsung as the representative of the cultivation of their own "core" manufacturers, or millet, ZTE as the representative of the expansion of the list of suppliers, mobile phone chip area will be more competitive. The brunt of the impact is the former overlord-Qualcomm. Qualcomm's preparation for smartphones is a fast-changing market with more competition than the pc of the year. Sit on the throne of the first place today, perhaps tomorrow will be replaced by others. Intel has been sitting on the PC chip market for nearly 30 years, while the upstart in the Mobile world is facing a challenge from rivals and the loosening of its rival handset makers. Although James that the current competition for Qualcomm has no need to "make a fuss", and Qualcomm-led 2G technology standard CDMA also from the market in the absolute advantages of GSM survival, visible its vitality and ability to deal with enemies. However, on the other hand Qualcomm is also embarking on a new round of market promotion to consolidate its position, James Introduction: "Our recent propaganda focus is that the operation on the phone we call ' mobile heterogeneous ', the so-called ' heterogeneous ' is handled by a few very professional processing units to support a unique user experience. Like taking pictures,Of course it is to use CPU, but it may be more used to the ISP (image Signal Processor, imaging signal processor), ISP is professional for processing images. "In fact this is an extension of the integration capabilities advocated by Qualcomm," James explains: "Our phone or tablet is more like a symphony orchestra, it's not solo." You need to have a variety of very professional ability modules to work together to finally pop up a very beautiful song. So from this perspective, we think that mobile phones and computers are fundamentally different. "For Intel, a competitor from the PC industry, James is not afraid, because in his opinion, the smartphone is not" hand of the small computer ", he further explained: The computer first its work compared to our mobile phone is relatively single, the 2nd is still motionless, the 3rd it is plugged into the power. Another is that its volume is unrestricted. These determine the CPU for the computer's performance capacity accounted for a larger proportion. And Qualcomm is "born and moved", which is why do computer chips to do mobile phone chips, this corner is not easy to turn over, not even a road, which is two different things. For ordinary consumers with no technical background, Qualcomm has put forward the concept of "experience engine", the different experiences of many smartphones, such as taking photos, games and navigation, are supported by the experience engine, and Qualcomm hopes to explain this concept to more consumers to avoid being preempted by competitors in a round of CPU cores and computational power competition. Whether it is for the industry's technical background of the "mobile heterogeneous", or for ordinary consumers need to popularize the concept of "experience engine", in fact Qualcomm are hoping that their comprehensive strength to be more widely recognized. The war in the mobile phone chip sector has begun, but it is unclear whether Qualcomm's campaign will be effective. Perhaps Qualcomm missed a chance, a "Qualcomm Inside" timing. A lot of people have seen the inside of Intel. Intel has paid dearly for it: in the face of competition from AMD 20 years ago, Intel invested billions of dollars in advertising and paid large subsidies to PC manufacturers, It's just a change. Subsequent branding (small blue logo appears on each PC's fuselage).