Domestic chip speed to break integrated circuit "glass giant crisis"

["Although China is a network power, but we are a giant wearing glass armor, glass armor looks strong, but fragile." "There is a comment that

Not long ago, Intel shares the exhibition, and the two sides announced that they "will jointly develop mobile solutions based on Intel Architecture and Communications Technology". ARM architecture, China's handset chip manufacturers have a new choice.

Speaking of China's integrated circuit industry, a familiar word is "lack of heart and less soul"-lack of independent chip and operating system. PC era began, "Wintel (Windows+intel)" Swept the world, to the mobile internet era, Android, ios+ also control the mobile phone device hardware and software.

Over the past decade, the industry's elite dream of "domestic substitution Wintel" has come to naught. In the Mobile chip field, China seems to have initially established a complete industrial chain, but if the arm to stop the processor architecture authorization support, China's chip design will lose the research and development base, if the foreign refused to introduce advanced production lines, the Chinese chip manufacturing process will stop at 28nm.

In fact, in the processor architecture, key equipment manufacturing, China has not yet emerged from the high reliance on international manufacturers, still living under arm, Intel System. "Although our country is a network of great powers, but we are a giant wearing glass armor, glass armor looks strong, but fragile." "There are comments that.

ARM "Shadow"

Compared to Qualcomm, Marvell, MediaTek, arm in the size of people, assets, is not very much known. But it is the not-so-outstanding company that controls the global chip industry in secret.

At present, the arm ecosystem includes more than 1000 partners. Among them are more attention is Qualcomm, Marvell, MediaTek and other mobile chip manufacturers, its products are commonly used arm architecture.

The newsletter is one of the leading mobile phone chip design companies in China, but its chips are all based on ARM architecture. The company launched the Hai-si Kirin chip also adopted the ARM architecture.

How high is arm's market share in mobile phone chips? If three users bought separately, Samsung, Huawei mobile phones, the three mobile phones using independent chips or Qualcomm chips, but no matter which one of the phone chips, are based on ARM architecture. ARM has proudly said that its micro-processing technology is used by 95% of smartphones around the world.

ARM's influence is not limited to the mobile phone field. At present, the processor based on the arm of the average daily sales of more than 16 million, covering mobile phones, tablets, servers, home appliances, navigation equipment and many other fields.

In the past year or two, Intel has invested a lot of resources to promote the Atom processor kernel on the mobile side, and in the view of Yanhui, the Secretary general of the mobile phone, Intel and the co-operation, from Intel, may be hoping to compete with the arm system with the help of China.

In the PC era, China has been lack of independent chip and operating system, "domestic substitution Wintel" has become the goal of the domestic industry elite. However, according to the reporter understand, although in the PC experiment has been successful, research and development of independent architecture godson chip, more attention has been focused on expanding the field of application.

In the Mobile chip field, the thinking of China's industrial development from the construction of independent structure into the arm of the ecology, although the initial design, manufacture, packaging and testing of the industrial chain, but in addition to the lack of independent processor architecture, in the chip manufacturing industry also lacks the ability to manufacture production lines, "that is, we can produce chips, But the production line of chips, the ' hen ' that lays eggs, is produced abroad. "China Intelligent terminal operating System Industry alliance Secretary General Cao Dong

Domestic acceleration

In 2010, hackers attacked Iranian uranium enrichment equipment, which led to the postponement of electricity generation at Iran's nuclear power plant. It turned out that hackers relied on 4 undisclosed vulnerabilities in the then-common operating system version.

It is not inconceivable to set aside the "back door". "Such as data return, mobile phone manufacturers will be involved, because the manufacturers will be through data to facilitate user management, improve products, so will reserve the software ' backdoor '." Foreign experts have successfully demonstrated that the use of embedded in the chip key or ' backdoor ' control of the phone. "A person who declined to be named in the newsletter is accepting

At present, none of the chips have been publicly proven to have some kind of "backdoor", but the hidden concerns have escalated with the Prism gate event. These people told reporters that the internal structure of the chip is difficult to reverse engineering, it is difficult to find out whether the other modules are embedded, which means that even if there is a "backdoor", it is difficult to detect or confirm.

"Security is relative, not to say that as long as their own technology is certain to be safe, but the technology in their own hands, we at least know what is ' back door ', otherwise it will be impossible." "Cao Dong said.

At present, China is a big country of integrated circuit industry, but it is not a powerful country. Not only in the core technology to leave a blank, in the trade is also a higher degree of external dependence. Data show that in 2013, China's imports of integrated circuits 231.3 billion U.S. dollars, more than oil became the first major import commodities, foreign dependence has exceeded 60%.

Some experts believe that, to promote the development of independent integrated circuit industry, for national security, independent innovation, economic upgrading of the transformation, there is "more than one" role. According to industry estimates, each 1 yuan output value of integrated circuit can drive the electronic information industry 10 yuan output value, form about 100 yuan of gross domestic product.

In June this year, the State Council issued the "National Integrated circuit Industry Development Program", chip design, manufacturing, packaging testing as the focus of the outline, the chip industry has become a strategic industry driven by the country. The goal is to 2020, in mobile terminals, network communications, cloud computing, things networking, large data and other key areas, integrated circuit design technology should reach the international leading level, at the same time, the initial formation of industrial ecosystems, 16/14NM manufacturing technology should achieve scale production, packaging testing technology should reach the international leading level.

Exhibition of the above insiders told reporters that in the chip design research and development, for the ecological environment, our country still need to use the ARM structure in the short term, but the independent framework "is definitely the future of a goal", now take the "two-step" strategy, is one aspect do ARM architecture research and development, On the other hand also encourage enterprises to develop a chip with autonomous structure, both are doing. ”

The promotion of localization does not imply restrictions on foreign manufacturers, the above people told reporters that foreign-funded enterprises can open the market through cooperation with Chinese companies, "Chinese enterprises are flexible market positioning, according to the market can quickly define a product, foreign chip companies have strong technology accumulation, can promote the 4G, 5G standard research and development, The two sides can work together in different perspectives. "(Wu Fengheng)