Just for show? Why do mobile phone manufacturers develop their own processors?

Looking at the competition landscape of mobile phone processors this year, it can be summarized as "Qualcomm is frustrated, Samsung is leading, and MediaTek is secretly happy." But under this big picture, there are actually undercurrents. For example, after several years of hard work, Huawei has finally caught up with mainstream SoCs in performance and has even surpassed them in communication performance. The latest exposure of the Kirin 950 specifications is even more luxurious. If the final product is true, the situation where domestic chips are inferior to others will be broken from now on.

In addition to Huawei, Lenovo and other mobile phone manufacturers have also been reported to be developing their own processors. It is believed that domestic mobile phone processors will explode starting from 2016.

Then, when the processor market has been reshuffled and stabilized for a long time, why are some manufacturers so obsessed with developing their own processors?

Control costs

When analyzing any behavior of a company, the core is based on "commercial interests". Whether manufacturers exit or enter a market, it is essentially a trade-off between interests. Therefore, chips, which directly determine the price of mobile phones, naturally become a hot commodity that everyone wants to "get involved in". Especially for manufacturers who focus on cost-effectiveness, their importance is self-evident.

For example, Huawei's transformation into high-end products is largely due to its exclusive Kirin chips. On the one hand, it has created a good brand image full of technical strength, which has solid marketing experience; on the other hand, it has effectively controlled the cost of the entire machine, so that it can still make steady profits even in a fiercely competitive environment. At the same time, it can leave more room for pricing and fully respond to various price wars from competitors. Therefore, in the Honor brand, we can see the ruthlessness of Huawei when it fights a price war.

Reduce uncertainty

By developing our own processors, the route planning is basically controllable, and all aspects can be prepared in advance, which greatly reduces the uncertainty brought to the product by various external factors.

This uncertainty can be attributed to the supply chain and the quality of finished products. In terms of the supply chain, a manufacturer's own processor can greatly enhance its voice, so that it will not be completely passive when using other companies' chips, and will not miss the hot sales period due to supply shortages or even malicious supply cuts, resulting in profit losses.

The quality of finished products mainly refers to the final performance of the processor, including performance, heat, power consumption and other dimensions. Manufacturers without their own chips can only leave it to fate and choose what the upstream supplies. If the quality of the finished product is good, then it is lucky, if not, then you can only swallow your anger. For example, the Snapdragon 810, which suffers from heat problems, has really pitted a lot of mobile phone manufacturers, especially the Sony Z3+ with double glass and triple protection design, which has become a fire in winter. Other manufacturers are not much better, and finally it has become a selling point for mobile phones to "cool down" the Snapdragon 810, which is really funny.

Apple, Samsung and Huawei, which have their own chips, don't have to worry about this problem at all. Not only did the former two not suffer any losses as a result, they also crushed Qualcomm and were greatly proud of themselves.

Forming characteristics

Since the processors are designed by themselves, manufacturers will naturally want to make them different so as to gain an advantage in the highly homogenized mobile phone market.

For example, Samsung's Exynos 7420 has become the first 14nm processor by virtue of its own nanotechnology advantages, achieving the goal of maintaining low power consumption and heat generation under the premise of high performance, and eventually replaced Snapdragon 810 to become the representative of the top SoC in the Android camp.

Apple's A series chips are also unique. In addition to the well-known advanced graphics performance, the high-performance ISP is also a part that cannot be underestimated. It supports the iPhone's precise 3A algorithms, fast continuous shooting and high-frame rate video recording, and fully demonstrates the strength of the 8-megapixel sensor. Of course, the M series coprocessor added from A7 is also industry-leading, which not only effectively reduces power consumption, but also makes full preparations for the subsequent Apple Watch. All of this is based on self-developed chips.

Earn Profit

It will certainly be difficult for mobile phone manufacturers to develop their own processors at the beginning, and it may even be difficult to balance input and output. But once they get through this transition period and the chips mature, the harvest season will come.

We have already mentioned the various benefits of own mobile phones. In addition, selling to other mobile phone manufacturers is also a way to make profits. Take Meizu for example. Because it is unwilling to compromise with Qualcomm on the patent fee issue, and MediaTek's chips seem to be insufficient for its flagship phones, it has no choice but to buy Orion processors from Samsung for equipment. We don't know the specific purchase price yet, but considering Meizu's increasing sales, it must be a huge revenue for Samsung's semiconductor business.

At the same time, since the positioning of Samsung mobile phones is different from that of Meizu and the price difference is also very large, the external display of the Orion processor will not have much impact on the sales of its own mobile phones.

Watching the future

It is an indisputable fact that smartphones are facing a bottleneck in development. There is no certainty about which direction smart devices will develop in the future. At this stage, we can only cross the river by feeling the stones. Although there are many variables in the device, the core still cannot do without the support of the processor chip.

Take the popular wearable devices for example, whether it is Apple Watch or Moto 360, chips still play an indispensable role. Manufacturers with their own processors can make timely adjustments according to changes in the overall environment to meet the needs of new products and greatly shorten time costs.

Summarize

In addition to the five considerations of commercial interests mentioned above, national policy encouragement and security precautions may also be the reasons that prompt manufacturers to enter the processor market. But no matter what the starting point is, it is undoubtedly a good thing that more and more manufacturers are joining the processor design field, which will greatly drive the development of the entire industry chain and ultimately enhance my country's comprehensive strength and voice in the semiconductor field.

But when we cheer for the achievements of Huawei and other manufacturers, we also have to face up to a problem: the underlying CPU architecture of various chips with different names is still purchased from abroad, and the GPU part can only adopt other people's solutions. Except for some achievements in communication baseband, other parts are not really leading. These improvements related to the underlying performance architecture may require a generation of efforts.

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.