The mobile phone baseband that makes Qualcomm dominate is often the key component that everyone ignores
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When it comes to mobile phones, everyone has different degrees of obsession with configuration. How fast the CPU must be, how big the memory must be, how high the camera must be. Although the configuration reflects the performance of the mobile phone to a certain extent, the mobile phone is a communication tool, and the communication performance is the fundamental, and the component that determines the communication capability is the mobile phone baseband. Today, let's learn about what the mobile phone baseband is! What is a baseband chip? We won't get too entangled in the professional explanation of the baseband. Simply put, the baseband chip is equivalent to a Taobao store. Users place a bunch of orders (such as phone calls, Internet access, text messages, etc.) at once. The waiter packs all these order goods according to the existing cooperating express companies (such as: WCDMA, CDMA 2000, etc.), and then sends them out. What is the role of the baseband chip? Everyone pays attention to the quality of goods when shopping online, and the importance of express logistics cannot be ignored. If a store only supports EMS, it will pass without saying anything. The same is true for mobile phones. If a mobile phone can only use one of China Telecom, China Unicom, and China Mobile, it can only be eliminated. Therefore, our favorite mobile phone is a full-network mobile phone, and whether it can be full-network is determined by the mobile phone baseband. These are the current domestic commercial communication standards and the operators using these standards. At the same time, China is also the country with the most complicated communication standards in the world: GSM European 2G communication standard (China Mobile, China Unicom) CDMA 1x North American 2G communication standard (China Telecom) TS-SCDMA China 3G communication standard (China Mobile) WCDMA European 3G communication standard (China Unicom) (CDMA) EVDO North American 3G communication standard (China Telecom) LTE Global 4G communication standard (China Mobile, China Unicom, China Telecom) When it comes to network standards, there are many memorable stories here. When China joined the WTO, CDMA entering China was one of the negotiation conditions. In the era when CDMA was popular, Qualcomm monopolized CDMA patents without any suspense. Since monopoly means that it can do whatever it wants, through high patent licensing fees, patent anti-licensing, Qualcomm taxes and other means, Qualcomm has perfectly obtained several titles such as "patent troll", "industry cancer", and "baseband demon". At the same time, domestic telecom users also suffered greatly. The CDMA standard charges too high fees. When operators do not buy it, terminal companies also ignore CDMA. Over time, the number of CDMA mobile phones on the market is scarce and the styles are old. The price is higher than that of other operators, and the quality is not superior. I feel sad when I think of it. At this time, I echoed in my heart, "Once you enter the telecom industry, you will be worried like the sea, and it will be difficult to buy a mobile phone from then on." Due to the absolute dominance of Qualcomm in the 2G and 3G era, domestic baseband manufacturers have been sluggish and basically have nothing to do. However, there is an old saying: the more romantic, the more XX. Qualcomm has an absolute advantage and makes a lot of money. It is relatively passive to follow up on new technologies. At this time, the communication industry compatriots around the world who have been oppressed by Qualcomm for a long time have united, and finally successfully promoted the establishment of the current LTE standard, and successfully took a solid step towards de-Qualcommization. Qualcomm is a bad company, so everyone is trying to kill it. In the 4G era, many excellent baseband manufacturers have emerged, but Qualcomm is not as strong as it was in the 3G era because of its lack of ambition. Let's see which "rising stars" can stir up the baseband market! Domestic star - Huawei HiSilicon HiSilicon's SOC baseband part is indeed impressive, and its representative work is the Balong series. The Kirin 920/950 series processors integrate Huawei's Balong 720, which supports a Cat.6 download speed of 300Mbps. Of course, this performance is still very general. HiSilicon's strongest baseband is the Balong 750 released at the end of last year. It is the first in the world to support LTE Cat.12 and Cat.13 UL network standards, with a theoretical download rate of up to 600Mbps and an upload rate of 150Mbps, which is only slightly inferior to Qualcomm X16. HiSilicon's latest Kirin 960 is equipped with this baseband, and it also bids farewell to the ancestral 55NM external baseband, truly realizing full network access, and is indeed excellent in communication performance. Qualcomm's shadow - Sansang Speaking of mobile phones, our universe enterprise Sansang is indispensable. The mobile phone industry chain basically has its own factories, but the baseband is still suppressed by Qualcomm. In the 4G era, even Sansang, the big boss of the mobile phone industry, cannot escape the control of Qualcomm and has no choice but to launch dual versions. Where CDMA network is needed, such as the domestic version, the Qualcomm baseband is used, and the international version is the Exynos 8890's own baseband. Although Samsung's accumulation in baseband is not deep, with its strong R&D capabilities, the Shannon 335 baseband used by Exyons 8890 supports LTE Cat.12 DL and LTE Cat.13 UL, and its performance is not inferior to Qualcomm X12 and Balong 750. Samsung's progress is obvious to all, and next year's flagship S8 is worth looking forward to. Low-end professional——MediaTek Although I don’t mean to disparage MediaTek, its products are always cheap and good enough, which gives people the impression that they are not high-end enough. The baseband of MediaTek is also of this nature. The integrated baseband specification is LTE Cat.6, which supports 2×20MHz download carrier aggregation, with a maximum download speed of 300Mbps and an upload speed of 50Mbps. The most amazing thing is that it is all-network compatible. MediaTek said that referring to the level of domestic mobile network construction, no matter how powerful your parameters are, it is really useless because you can’t use them at all. It’s better to buy a stable and cheap one. Mobile Confusion - Intel Intel is a well-known name, but it is not good in the mobile field. Although it is in a difficult situation in the mobile field, Intel still has some technical accumulation, especially after acquiring the old manufacturer Infineon, Intel's LTE plan has been accelerated. The latest XMM 7480 has been upgraded to four-carrier aggregation and supports up to 33 frequency bands. Although the download speed is still 450Mbps, the upload speed has been increased to LTE Cat.13 150Mbps, which is equivalent to the X12 LTE of Qualcomm Snapdragon 820. The disadvantage is that it still does not support the CDMA standard. Although Intel is still relatively weak, it has made a lot of money by winning the large order of iPhone 7. However, compared with Qualcomm baseband, which is also used in iPhone 7, it is indeed weak. It still needs to work hard, otherwise it will be driven off the train again. Baseband Overlord - Qualcomm Although Qualcomm has been criticized above, the gap in market share and core patent technology is narrowing, but Qualcomm is still the strongest in the baseband market. This is beyond doubt. We must recognize the gap to leapfrog development. Qualcomm's current technology can maintain its advantage for more than 6 months, and it supports the most complete network standards. Its excellent performance makes it the best choice for all-network mobile phones. Qualcomm's mainstream LTE basebands are currently X5, X7, X8, X10, and X12 series. High-end phones are equipped with X12 LTE basebands, which support Cat12 and Cat 13 network standards, with 600Mbps downlink and 150Mbps uplink. Although the performance is good, Huawei and Samsung have already released products of the same level. Seeing that they are about to be caught up, Qualcomm also began to get anxious and quickly released the strongest X16 LTE baseband on the surface, with a theoretical downlink rate of up to 1Gbps (downlink LTE Cat.16, uplink LTE Cat.13), which is the first baseband chip to reach the Gbps level. Other baseband manufacturers include Spreadtrum, Marvell and other brands, but the products are less popular, so I won't go into details here. As an important component of mobile phone communication, baseband plays a key role. However, even if you are equipped with the best baseband, it does not mean that your mobile phone signal is the best. In addition to the baseband, there are many factors that affect your mobile phone signal: the network of the operator As we all know, mobile phone signals need to be covered by base stations, especially in cities where there is no space to build large base stations, so they can only be built in a "small and many" way. The base station is small in scale, and the signal penetration is relatively weak. In addition, the current urban planning is not reasonable, and the numerous buildings can easily cause physical signal blind spots, thus affecting the user's mobile phone signal. In cities, the network coverage of the three major operators is still qualified, but in some remote suburbs or rural areas, the network experience of some operators has become very unfriendly, so the network coverage of operators will greatly affect the strength of mobile phone signals. Design technology of mobile phone manufacturers Back then, mobile phones were basically made of plastic and had no electromagnetic shielding, so signal problems were not so concerned. However, when mobile phones began to use metal shells, signal problems became the focus of everyone's attention. The most representative one is Apple's "death grip". Of course, now everyone uses metal casings. Under the same conditions, the quality of the signal can be more fairly compared. Some friends will find that the baseband used by the mobile phone is the same, but why is my mobile phone without signal, while others have signal? In addition to the different baseband software optimization, the more important thing is the brand's antenna design capability. The baseband can be regarded as a translator to ensure the integrity of the communication, and the transmission and reception of the signal depends on the antenna. If the mobile phone manufacturer has strong R&D capabilities, invests more in the antenna part, and does sufficient testing, the signal will naturally be strong. However, some manufacturers who do not invest much in technology R&D can only buy ready-made solutions or only conduct a small amount of testing, so the signal performance is greatly reduced. For the topic of mobile phone signals, to a certain extent, it has risen to the realm of metaphysics. Every user will have his own ideas and opinions. Even if there is an authoritative report proving that the signal of the product is excellent, the signal will still be poor in the hands of a certain user. There are too many influencing factors in the middle, which also proves that user experience is indeed an extremely important part. Professionals can disassemble the phone to test the quality of the signal module, but ordinary consumers do not have such conditions and can only know the communication capabilities of the product after they get it. In the case of complex domestic network environment, the author still recommends that you choose an operator with good signal coverage, which is more reliable than a mobile phone with good signal. As a winner of Toutiao's Qingyun Plan and Baijiahao's Bai+ Plan, the 2019 Baidu Digital Author of the Year, the Baijiahao's Most Popular Author in the Technology Field, the 2019 Sogou Technology and Culture Author, and the 2021 Baijiahao Quarterly Influential Creator, he has won many awards, including the 2013 Sohu Best Industry Media Person, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Beijing Third Place, the 2015 Guangmang Experience Award, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Finals Third Place, and the 2018 Baidu Dynamic Annual Powerful Celebrity. |
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