Xiaomi is taking a really ruthless approach to research and development, recruiting chip experts next to Huawei and OPPO

Xiaomi is really "ruthless" in R&D

The mobile phone industry can be said to be the most fiercely competitive industry. There are not only serious hand-to-hand battles between peers; There are many truths and falsehoods behind them;

Therefore, in order to prove themselves, leading companies in this industry will deliberately emphasize the word "true"; such as "true" flagship, "true" "5G, "true" full screen...

Although Xiaomi suddenly emerged thanks to its Internet model, it became the number one in China and among the top three in the world in three years, but then quickly declined, and then bucked the trend and grew again. In the most recent quarter, it became the second largest company in the world, surpassing Apple.

Although Xiaomi has "outstanding" performance, in recent years, it has been labeled as an assembly plant, has no core technology, and does not pay attention to research and development; some even maliciously attack Xiaomi as a fake (inferior) domestic product and a comprador. Traitor...

Among them, the most complained about is that Xiaomi invests too little in R&D. The core of the mobile phone - the operating system is from Google in the United States, the chip is from Qualcomm in the United States, and the screen and image are from Samsung in South Korea. ...and Huawei, which is often used as a reference, not only has HiSilicon Kirin chips, but now also has Hongmeng operating system, and it also has the appeal to unseat Apple in the high-end user market.

However, in business, giving an opponent an "unwarranted" label and making the opponent tired of being criticized in the "unwarranted" whirlpool of public opinion is a way to win without fighting. A smart strategy, although crude, is not expensive, simple and effective.

What’s more, compared to its competitors, Xiaomi, which has always prided itself on being an Internet company, often invests more than double digits in R&D in the Internet camp. Xiaomi’s R&D investment of 3 points is indeed relatively high. Low. Although this investment intensity is higher than that of the hardware and traditional home appliance industries, if Xiaomi really wants to have black technology, it is not whether to increase R&D investment, but must increase R&D investment.

Therefore, we Looking at Xiaomi's financial report data for the first half of this year, Xiaomi invested RMB 3.1 billion in R&D in Q2 2021, a year-on-year increase of 56.5. Xiaomi's net profit in the second quarter was 6.3 billion, which is equivalent to Xiaomi using nearly half of its profits for R&D. From 2021 Looking at the first half of the year, the net profit was 12.391 billion, and R&D investment was 6.1 billion, which means that nearly 50% of the profits were invested in R&D.

This does not include Lei Jun’s equity incentive plan that shocked the technology circle, such as this Category article title: "Rebuked 4.3 billion in five days, issued three consecutive employee "red envelopes", Lei Jun: Talent is the cornerstone of Xiaomi's take-off in the new decade"

Recruiting mobile phone chip experts

Lei Jun stated in a letter to shareholders published on his official WeChat public account: It is clear that Xiaomi will continue to implement the core strategy of "Mobile Phone X AIoT" in 2021 and increase investment in research and development. (2021) is expected to grow by more than 30% and is expected to exceed 13 billion yuan. We will further expand the size of our R&D team, and we will recruit more than 5,000 engineers this year.

Invest in ten key research areas respectively.

However, among the ten key areas, there are 5G and 6G communication standard technologies, but there is no operating system technology, and mobile phone SOC chip technology is not among them. In particular, Mi Xiaolong, the founding partner of Pinecone Electronics who was responsible for Xiaomi chips, resigned to take up the position of Unisoc. Bai Jian, the head of the pan-connection business management department and the general manager of Xiaomi Chip and Prospective Research Department, also resigned in November to join NIO. The two core generals of Xiaomi Chip left one after another, which made many people think that Xiaomi Pengpai Chip It has cooled down, so the public opinion that Xiaomi will no longer invest in chip research and development is boiling again. Although Xiaomi's individual channels or Lei Jun himself said that Xiaomi's surging chips are still going on, but they all disappeared in comparison with the huge Xiaomi, which has no core technology. In the public opinion of the assembly plant,

However, Xiaomi's Pengpai chip continues. According to the recruitment requirements of Xiaomi's official website, and after recruiting the "Mobile Phone Department - Hardware R&D - SoC Technology Planning Expert" position on March 8 this year, in 9 In March, mobile phone chip positions such as "SOC Software Solution Engineer", "SOC Design Engineer", "SOC Methodology Engineer", and "SOC System Engineer (SE)" were released.

Chip research and development is a high investment. Slow return and high-risk projects, especially mobile phone chips, are the technological commanding heights in chip research and development.

SoC is a "system-on-chip" that integrates a variety of processors, such as Qualcomm's for mobile phone manufacturers What is provided is the SoC. If the CPU (central processing unit) is the brain, then the SoC is the system including the brain, heart, eyes and hands. It integrates AP (application chip, including CPU and GPU), BP (baseband chip), ISP and other chips .

Currently, only a few companies in the world, such as Qualcomm, MediaTek, and Unisoc, have the ability to design mobile phone SoCs.

Among mobile phone manufacturers, only Samsung, Apple, and Huawei in the world have the ability to successfully mass-produce and commercialize chips worth tens of millions of dollars. Although Xiaomi has also successfully mass-produced the "Paper S1" before, Due to its own technical limitations, Biyu only supports mobile networks and has poor heating control, resulting in a lackluster market response.

The subsequent "Paper S2" chip has always been ignored by media reports. Genuine product,

However, judging from the latest recruitment information of Xiaomi, the recruitment location for mobile phone SOC chip research and development is in Pudong New Area, Shanghai, and its friends include not only Huawei, but also OPPO Research Institute, an upstart chip research and development company. According to According to reports, OPPO’s chip subsidiary ZEKU has expanded from about 1,000 employees at the end of 2020 to nearly 2,000 today, with some of its employees coming from Huawei HiSilicon, Unisoc and some Taiwanese semiconductor companies. The annual salary of chip engineers with more than five years is about 500,000 yuan, which means that the basic R&D salary expenditure of OPPO’s ZEKU main chip engineers is about 800 million yuan a year.

Among the top four domestic mobile phones of Huami OV, only Xiaomi is a listed company and needs to publish financial reports regularly, while the other three top three, whether they invest in R&D at a loss or make a fortune in silence, just You need to be mentally prepared.

Compared with Huawei’s direct and pressured investment in chip research and development, OPPO adopts experience similar to Xiaomi’s and wants to start with ISP chips (imaging). For example, Xiaomi will develop its own “Pengpai” chip. The C1" chip was first used in Xiaomi's MIX FOLD folding screen mobile phone. This is Xiaomi's most expensive high-end mass-produced folding screen mobile phone.

Recently, it is rumored that OPPO's ISP chip has also been successfully taped out and may be installed in 2022 On the Find X5 mobile phone released in the first half of this year.

Because there are many articles with the title "OPPO's first self-developed chip released, does it beat Xiaomi Pascal C1 in performance?" 》

In fact, compared to SOC chips, ISP chips can be said to be just a component of system chips. Therefore, Xiaomi, which has been making chips for seven years, said it had made a small chip when it was released, because whether it is Xiaomi or OPPO, if you want to successfully design SOC chips, there are still many pitfalls to overcome, and you must be prepared to spend a lot of money on them.

Really "black technology".

The good news is that everyone from Huawei to Xiaomi to VIVO and OPPO have indeed felt the urgency of developing core technologies and have invested in starting the journey of core manufacturing.

Good The beginning is half the success

Who do you expect to become the "domestic light" of China's mobile phone chips?