SoC can be said to be the technical solution with the most complex process and the highest-end chip production today.
SoC is System on Chip, Chinese name is system-on-chip, also refers to system-on-chip, is an integrated circuit product with a dedicated target, which includes a complete system and all the contents of Lora Wireless Modules embedded software. At the same time, it is also a wireless technology, which is used to realize from the determination of the system function, to the soft/
The core and most critical chip of smartphones and computers is the SoC chip.
Smartphones are probably the most used electronic products in life that have SoCs. The brain of a mobile phone, the so-called “processor” belongs to the SoC. At present, the mainstream mobile phone SoCs include the Snapdragon 8Gen1, Kirin 9000, and Dimensity 9000. These SoCs integrate CPU (central processing unit), GPU (graphics processing unit), NPU (embedded neural network), ISP (image processing), as well as communication baseband and storage, etc., integrating numerous functional units into one chip combined into a system.
Simply put, SoC is a chip that integrates functions such as CPU, GPU, storage, and display. Small but complete.
To sum up, it can be seen that the integration level of SoC is extremely high, which reduces the use of peripheral modules and circuits, which is very beneficial to shortening the development cycle and reducing development costs. The current computer CPU also has a trend of developing towards SoC. Some models of CPU integrate memory, Wi-Fi, etc. into the CPU, making computers with smaller size appear.
Taking Kirin 9000 as an example, it integrates functions such as Cortex core, Mali series GPU, 5G baseband, etc. In the design of mobile phone SoCs by many manufacturers, we can see Cortex cores, which reflects the characteristics of SoC IP cores that can be reused; Moreover, among the Cortex cores it uses, four Cortex-A77s and four Cortex-A75s are used, which is also in line with the feature that SoCs can have multiple IP cores.
In addition, the biggest impact on SoC performance: CPU single-core, CPU multi-core and GPU. The key to CPU multi-core performance depends on the architecture: X2≈X1>A78>A77>A76>>A75>A73>>A55/A53 (when the architecture is the same, the higher the frequency, the stronger; SPI module when the other is the same, the four cores are more powerful than the natural dual cores powerful). The CPU and GPU performance of products of the same level are generally corresponding.
High-end SoC chips currently have R&D strength from Apple, Samsung and Huawei. Huawei HiSilicon’s Kirin series SoCs are independently designed and developed by Huawei, which benchmarks Apple’s A series, Qualcomm Snapdragon, and Samsung’s Orion processors. However, due to the impact of sanctions, TSMC no longer works for Huawei.
After the fall of Huawei HiSilicon, Ziguang Zhanrui is considered to be the domestic SoC leader and one of the most promising domestic chip manufacturers in the “post-HiSilicon era”. UNISOC has forged its own path in the field of IoT. According to the latest research report of Counterpoint, UNISOC will occupy the second place in the global cellular IoT chip market with a market share of 26.8% in the third quarter of 2021, and surpass Qualcomm in the LTE Cat.1 chip segment to become the world’s first. .
In addition, Rockchip, Crystal Morning, Fullhan, and Espressif among the consumer-grade SoCs are also worth looking forward to. Rockchip is the pioneer of domestic audio and video main control SoC, Jingchen is the leader of domestic multimedia terminal SoC, and one of the very few TV chip suppliers in China. Espressif’s Wi-Fi MCU SoC communication chip and its modules are in the global market It ranks first in the share, and the ASP of Fullhan’s ISP chip is the leader in this field.
At present, the coverage of domestic SoC chip products is still extensive, but the underlying architecture still depends on the international ARM and X86 architecture. Affected by the sanctions, the development of domestic SoC chips has a long way to go.