Xiaomi engineer: ThePaper S2 processor chip is still under development

Lei Jun once revealed that when Xiaomi planned to make processor chips, it specifically consulted a large number of industry professionals.

Many people in the industry told Lei Jun that the chip industry needs at least 1 billion yuan to get started, and it is expected to continue to invest 1 billion US dollars, and it will take 10 years to get corresponding results. Does not necessarily produce effective results. In this process, there are still many unknown risks.

In fact, as early as 2014, Xiaomi had entered into technical cooperation with Lianxin Technology, a subsidiary of Datang Telecom. Datang Telecom licensed the LC1860 platform developed and owned by its wholly-owned subsidiary Lianxin Technology Co., Ltd. to Beijing Songguo Electronics Co., Ltd. at a price of 103 million yuan.

Then, taking the early R&D team of Lianxin Technology as the basic team and integrating some members of Xiaomi Company, the R&D team of the Songguo Pengpai chip was jointly formed. Finally, it was thanks to this cooperation with Lianxin Technology that Xiaomi achieved mass production of the Paper S1 chip in such a fast time.

It is widely rumored that the Xiaomi Songguo Shangpai S1 is just a change of the chip of Lianxin Technology. Although this statement is not so reliable; but compared with the new addition of the Xiaomi team, Lianxin Technology has carried out early The technical accumulation of basic research and development is undoubtedly the greatest contribution to the final mass production of the Paper S1 chip.

——What level is the ThePaper S1 chip at?

From a CPU perspective, the Xiaomi Pinecone S1 processor is basically similar to the Huawei HiSilicon Kirin 650, Qualcomm Snapdragon 616/625, and MediaTek P10. They all use ARM’s Cortex A53 and also integrate 8 There is a Cortex A53 CPU core, and the difference is that the main frequency is higher or lower.

From the analysis of manufacturing process, Xiaomi Pinecone S1 uses 28nm HPC manufacturing process; in contrast, Huawei HiSilicon Kirin 650 uses TSMC 16nm manufacturing process; Qualcomm Snapdragon 625 uses It is Samsung's 14nm manufacturing process. Just from the process comparison, ThePaper S1 has no advantage.

? Xiaomi Pinecone The Paper’s second-generation chip has been without any substantial news for nearly two years. However, there are widespread rumors that the ThePaper S2 chip has suffered numerous miscarriages. Xiaomi has suffered huge losses due to substandard quality and performance of the chip. Therefore, many people think that Xiaomi may give up research and development because of this.

However, Xiaomi engineers didn’t seem to think so and personally responded to Mi Fan’s question, saying that The Paper’s second-generation chips are still under development and are maintaining continued investment. (Embarrassingly, Xiaomi engineers believe that it is because China started late in the self-developed chip industry and has a weak foundation, so it needs more time.)

Perhaps, if this Xiaomi engineer changed his words, It makes sense that our company started late in the chip industry and has a weak foundation. Currently, China's breakthroughs in semiconductor research and development, especially in the field of chips, have been making rapid progress. For example, Huawei's HiSilicon Semiconductor Company, especially the Kirin 980 processor.

Many times, it is not that the skills of our scientific and technological personnel are not up to standard, but that they are hindered by the deployment of a large number of patents by foreign industry giants. We can definitely make the same product, but we must bypass the existing technologies that are bundled with patent rights. The research and development of new technologies is actually about finding new ways.

——There are some voices currently:

“Xiaomi bought the finished chips from Lianxin Technology, packaged them with a different label and turned them into Pengpai chips. This is actually to obtain more information for Xiaomi to go public. With a high valuation, now that the company is listed, the mission of Pengpai Chip has been completed."

"Xiaomi has no patent barriers and no technology accumulation. Even if it breaks through the technical obstacles, there is no protection from patent barriers. Even Qualcomm, Xiaomi's cornerstone shareholder, will not let it go if it is strangled by other giants."

Xiaomi and Lianxin Technology established Pinecone Electronics, and it seems that it is not just for the development of the Paper S series mobile phone processor chips. So simple. Not only mobile platforms and PC platforms, there are also giant chip technology patent barriers. It is also very obvious that Lei Jun’s ambition is not to make a mobile phone at all.

Lei Jun founded Xiaomi. It started with software technology in the early days and paved the way with cost-effective hardware in order to create a complete closed-loop ecosystem. This ecosystem includes many higher-level fields such as smart homes and the Internet of Things. The meaning of pine cone electronics has become the same attributes as HiSilicon Semiconductor, a subsidiary of Huawei.

Although Xiaomi’s Pinecone Electronics cannot help Huawei expand its territory like HiSilicon; however, if Pinecone Electronics really develops, it will be very beneficial for Xiaomi to expand into smart homes and things. Achieve deeper penetration in areas such as the Internet. Instead of relying on other technology frameworks like now.

Just imagine, like Xiaomi’s driving recorder, it uses Huawei’s chips and technical standards.

So, what will Xiaomi use to establish projects in the future? Will we continue to unite more subsidiaries and always rely on OEM?

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