The second question is simple, no.
Kirin processor was commissioned by TSMC in Taiwan Province, China. At present, there are not many foundries that can produce high-end chips in the world. Intel can produce it by itself, but the process has not improved in the past two years. Although Intel has always insisted that its chip production technology is ahead of TSMC and Samsung, it is really backward in terms of numbers.
In addition to Intel and TSMC, only Samsung and SMIC can contract high-end chip production. SMIC is located in Chinese mainland, but its output is limited, so it cannot be mass-produced. Samsung and TSMC have been competing for the chip foundry business of major companies, but the fact that Samsung lags behind TSMC is believed to be clear to everyone.
TSMC not only OEM Kirin processors, but also OEM Qualcomm processors, NVIDIA graphics cards, AMD processors and so on.
But the first question is very complicated. Is the Kirin processor developed by Huawei itself?
Yes, and no. Not exactly, but it can't be said that it isn't.
Kirin processor is a chip based on ARM architecture independently developed by Huawei. So what is the ARM architecture?
ARM is a CPU architecture with reduced instruction set designed by Acorn Limited. Now this company has been acquired by Softbank of Japan.
Acorn sells two contents, one is the licensing fee for the acquisition of ARM, and the other is the open chip drawings of ARM designed by Acorn itself.
Whether Apple's A-series processors, Qualcomm's Opteron processors, Taiwan Province's MediaTek MTK processors, or Samsung's processors, including our domestic Spreadtrum processor and Kirin processor mentioned in the question, are all CPU processor chips redesigned based on the authorization of ARM.
Therefore, Huawei's Kirin processor is not a processor independently developed from scratch. There is no doubt about it.
But the question is, why not design independently from scratch? In addition, is it difficult to carry out secondary design on this basis? Is Huawei's achievements worthy of recognition?
Why not start from the beginning? There are many reasons for this, such as design difficulty, software and hardware ecology, industrial chain company support, licensing copyright issues and so on. All these limit the possibility of designing chips from scratch.
Is it difficult to design chips based on ARM? I am not a practitioner in the field of chips, so I can't judge whether it is difficult to design a chip from a technical point of view. But we can consider whether it is difficult to design chips based on ARM from several objective facts.
Qualcomm is awesome. The designed chip has been hung up by Apple's A-series processors in performance. He currently leads Qualcomm for two generations.
MediaTek has a good chip design foundation and professional knowledge in baseband research and development. Its MTK chip was hung up by Qualcomm's Opteron processor, and now it has abandoned the high-end field.
Samsung's processor performance has been very strong, but it can't solve the baseband problem and high calorific value problem. At present, no mobile phone manufacturer has adopted Samsung's chips. Even Samsung uses Qualcomm processors in its flagship products.
Xiaomi Company successfully produced the first generation of chip processors on Lian Xin's drawings, but the second generation has not been launched yet. How many rice noodles are calling, but nothing has happened.
It can be inferred from the above facts that it is very difficult to design a flagship processor chip for mobile phones. If any technology company can make awesome chips by buying a drawing, there must be a lot of chips on the market, and it's not Qualcomm's turn.
And what is the level of Huawei's Kirin processor? In a word-the level of Qualcomm. At present, Huawei and Qualcomm compete alternately for the first place except Apple A series chips.
For example, 970 is better than 835, 845 is better than 970, 980 is better than 845, unpublished 855 is better than 980, and Huawei unpublished 990 is better than 855.
The two are closely intertwined, and after a few months of competition, they surpass another company's new flagship chip.
Looking at the whole market, Huawei, as a latecomer of chip design, has made this achievement, which is certainly worthy of recognition and praise.
Don't praise Huawei too much, because there is still an apple in front of Huawei and Qualcomm. Although it is not easy to get a second child, there is no second one! Calm down, there are more powerful opponents.
Don't belittle Huawei too much. You see, such achievements should be based on praise and affirmation. You can do whatever you want, and it takes no effort to type on the keyboard!
Speaking of Huawei's Kirin processor, people will admire "very powerful", so is the Kirin processor developed and manufactured by Huawei itself?
Any technology company knows that the development of a processor needs very complicated calculation and construction, and it also needs to consume countless manpower, financial resources and material resources. The current processor development is based on the CPU architecture named ARM developed by British Acorn Company.
Simply put, comparing the development of a processor to the construction of a big house, then the CPU is equivalent to a built steel frame, and the specific outline of the house can be seen. It is not enough for a house to have only a steel skeleton. Need to fill cement, lay a solid foundation, complete the whole house hardcover. The company that developed the processor has completed a series of filling parts. To put it simply, Huawei's Kirin processor is obtained by secondary program editing on this CPU framework.
Therefore, not all of Huawei's Kirin processors are developed by Huawei itself, but at least 80% of them are independently designed and developed, so there is no need to question Huawei's strength, because all the processors on the market, whether Qualcomm Apple or Samsung, are basically based on the design framework of ARM, so the degree of independent research and development of Huawei's Kirin processor is still very high.
After R&D, let's take a look at the production process of Kirin chips. Huawei chose TSMC in Taiwan Province, China for OEM production. TSMC factory is an old chip manufacturer. The value of its technology is self-evident, and the chips produced strive for perfection.
The Hisilicon Kirin processor was developed by Huawei, but not made by Huawei. It is made by the famous TSMC, which is very famous in the manufacturing field. All the processors of Apple are made by TSMC.
The research and development of Huawei Hisilicon Kirin processor began in 2004, and the first generation Kirin chip was launched in 2008. At that time, Ren still operated Kirin chips as an independent subsidiary, but lost hundreds of millions. Finally, he decided to do it in the same company as the mobile phone, and the firm investment finally made Hisilicon Kirin chip develop and become a domestic processor comparable to Qualcomm Snapdragon chip.
Hisilicon Kirin chip is developed based on ARM. Whether it is Apple's A processor, Qualcomm's Xiaolong processor, Taiwan Province MediaTek's MTK processor or Samsung's processor, it is the processor architecture of ARM.
Huawei's HiSilicon Kirin processor is very powerful, close to the level of Qualcomm, but it is still far from Apple's A series chips. But a mobile phone company can compete with a company specializing in chip processors, which shows how powerful Huawei is. After all, Huawei invests more than 90 billion in R&D every year.
Now Huawei is an important leader in domestic chips, and with the help of partners such as CAMBRIAN intelligent AI chips, it has been developing super chips. Proud of domestic brands.
I understand Kirin processor in this way: Kirin processor is a building, and Huawei is responsible for drawing design; Companies such as ARM provide various materials such as concrete (CPU, GPU, etc.). ); TSMC is responsible for the construction. If you explain it this way, it should work. Of course, this building (Kirin processor) built by Huawei is a product of Party A! Naturally it is Huawei's!
I believe Kirin processor has made it very clear. In fact, processor manufacturers, including Apple and Qualcomm, produce processors in this way.
For example, the CPU architecture is basically ARM, and Apple, Samsung and Qualcomm all use its architecture, and Kirin processors are naturally not immune. We can't deny the autonomy of Huawei Kirin processor just because Kirin processor uses ARM architecture.
We also saw the information provided by companies such as ARM. In fact, the companies here also include Huawei itself. Huawei's achievements in baseband field are obvious to all. As we know Ba Long baseband, we divide SoC into two parts, one is called BP (baseband processor) and the other is called AP (application processor). Among them, BP is the baseband chip. In 20 10, Ba Long 700, the industry's first terminal chip supporting TD-LTE, was launched.
Ba Long 750 was released in 20 15, which is the first baseband chip supporting LTE Cat. 12/ 13 in the world.
Now, we are looking forward to the cooperation between Kirin 980 and Ba Long 5000. This baseband supporting 5G network may have better performance!
In the actual development, Kirin processor has been advancing by leaps and bounds with a high attitude. Although it still lags behind Apple Qualcomm, it is not easy to catch up slowly. We are looking forward to the day when it cuts through thorns!
It was developed by Huawei and manufactured by TSMC.
The Kirin chip developed by Huawei's Hisilicon has won a good reputation at home and abroad. At present, there are four companies in the world that can design high-end mobile phone chips: Apple in the United States, Qualcomm, Samsung in South Korea and Huawei in China. Kirin 980 is the first 7nm chip released in the world. At present, only Kirin 980, Apple A 12 and Qualcomm 855 have achieved mass production.
Some people will argue that Huawei Kirin's mobile phone processor uses the British ARM architecture, not independent research and development. I want to say that 100% independent research and development is a natural economy, not a market economy. Both Samsung Orion and Apple A-series chips adopt ARM architecture. Are they independently developed? Does it mean that farmers have to produce their own hoes and fertilizers when they grow grain?
Let me talk about manufacturing. There are many wafer foundries in the world, and companies in the United States, Taiwan Province Province, Chinese mainland and South Korea can produce chips. But usually two companies can produce high-end mobile phone chips: TSMC and Samsung.
Among them, TSMC has a market share of over 50% and is the largest and most advanced wafer foundry in the world. At present, it has been able to mass produce 7nm high-end mobile phone chips. Apple A 12, Snapdragon 855 and Kirin 980 are all made by TSMC.
There is only one company in the world that can develop and manufacture mobile phone chips, and that is Samsung Electronics. But Samsung's R&D is not as good as that of Qualcomm and Huawei, and its manufacturing is not as good as that of TSMC. In addition, Samsung Orion's high-end chip has a major defect, that is, it does not support full netcom. Therefore, Samsung's high-end mobile phones will use Opteron processors in overseas markets.
At present, there are only a few popular self-developed smart phone processors in the market, such as Qualcomm, Apple, Samsung, Huawei and MediaTek. Unfortunately, these are all based on ARM architecture. Almost an unwritten knowledge has been formed. The architecture of smart phone processors adopts ARM, but it only develops to a certain extent, and then it is deeply transformed or even transformed into its own architecture system.
It is not shameful for Huawei to develop a mobile phone processor with ARM public architecture. Kirin chip also integrates many Huawei's own things on it to become SOC. However, at present, Huawei has not realized the deep transformation from ARM public architecture to its own architecture. At a certain stage, Huawei should take this road. The success of mobile phone chips from Qualcomm and Apple has pointed out such a way. Even if the public version of ARM architecture is used, the intellectual property of the processor will eventually fall into its own hands. As for the future ARM card system, it is estimated that Huawei will also make corresponding plans.
For manufacturing, it is basically a standard practice in the industry to separate chip design from manufacturing. Those who engage in design only engage in design and those who engage in manufacturing only engage in manufacturing, but the success of design and manufacturing is rare, and the industry is as rare as Intel. Huawei Kirin processor is not produced by Huawei now, and it should not be produced by itself in the future. There are such powerful manufacturing experts in the industry that TSMC doesn't need them. Instead, he invested a lot of hardware and then learned manufacturing technology from scratch. When you started your career, you didn't know that it was the Year of the Monkey and the market had been carved up. What else do you have?
Don't worry about buying ARM architecture, and don't mind that the Kirin chip is not made by yourself, but the Kirin chip as a whole belongs to Huawei. Just like Apple's mobile phone, he almost produces little, but earns the most money. Nobody cares that his chip is authorized by ARM, not produced by himself. The mobile phone is produced by Foxconn.
R&D and manufacturing are two different things. R&D is based on Huawei's ARM architecture. Manufacturing is entrusted to Foxconn for OEM.
R&D is based on ARM architecture.
Some people say, does this technology come from ARM? You can't say that, because almost all mobile platforms need an ARM-based architecture. Of course, RISC not only has ARM, but also occupies most of the market share, so even Apple's A-series chips, Samsung's Orion chips and Qualcomm's Snapdragon chips need to be based on ARM.
Of course, we still have to admit that others are more advanced and others use their own modified architecture, so Huawei is slowly enabling its own architecture.
Don't think that you can just do it based on ARM architecture. Look at how many enterprises engaged in ARM architecture have collapsed. Even if you are given the architecture, you are very particular about chip technologies such as SoC construction and power control. So you find that some companies develop chips, but they don't develop them soon after a few years. This is really burning money.
Usually, we all think that R&D is the boss, and OEM has no technical content.
However, in fact, chip foundry is also very technical. Ten fingers can count the companies that can OEM chips in the world. Among them, the largest is TSMC in Taiwan Province Province.
Huawei's chips are also OEM for TSMC. After all, it is unrealistic to build your own factory. You know, Huawei has made no achievements in chip production because it is not its own industry. So Huawei outsourced the chip foundry.
Of course, Huawei is not the only one, even Apple is looking for Foxconn OEM, and the chip is handed over to TSMC.
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To understand the Kirin processor, we need to start from two aspects:
Then, let's take a look at what the ARM architecture is and why Huawei has no ability to produce it by itself.