AirPower launches soon, a new round of outbreaks opens up the price war
Recently, the latest news from the industry said that Apple's original wireless charger AirPower will be officially launched at the end of the month, priced at 199 US dollars. However, Apple's wireless charging support WPC's Qi standard, and domestic manufacturers based on Qi standard certification wireless charging The device also supports iPhone 8/X wireless charging, and the price is cheaper.
Is there any market for Apple AirPower? Mr. Jin Guangyi, Marketing Director of Kyi Yi Innovation Products, said in an interview with JIEI. Airpower’s currently disclosed technical advantages include high power (29W), support for one-to-many charging, and complete Qi standard. Protocols, etc. Apple's complete set of wireless charging solutions can be matched to both transmitter and receiver in terms of solution design and performance optimization to achieve the ideal wireless charging effect.
Lu Huihong, chairman of Shanghai Xinjie, said in an interview that after the listing of Airpower, it is believed that many domestic companies will start to make similar products. Even some domestic companies will creatively make similar products with lower cost but limited functionality. Of course, it is also possible to make products that are compatible with Airpower and have some enhanced features. Among them, AirPower support for one-to-many wireless charging is becoming a difficult point for domestic wireless charging companies to overcome.
Therefore, Airpower's advantage is still very obvious. At present, the mid-range and high-end wireless chargers in the domestic market are still hard to rival. Jin Guangyi believes that after the listing of Airpower, this will inevitably further boost the demand and development of mid-to-high-end wireless chargers. The low-cost market is limited by the technical threshold and will be deeply stuck in the 'price war'.
In fact, after the mass production, how to make the cost lower, playing the 'price war' is a unique 'advantage' in the domestic market. After the iPhone 8/X was released last year, the first wave of dividends in the wireless charging market has been After being divided up by domestic manufacturers, the high-priced wireless charging solution supporting iPhone 8/X is already not favored by the market. Especially after the domestic market for wireless charging such as Xiaomi and Huawei is launched, the price war for wireless chargers on the transmitter side will be difficult to avoid. Said that from the market point of view, wireless charging transmitters, that is, wireless chargers have begun to steadily increase, a number of domestic mobile phone manufacturers will also release mobile phone products that support wireless charging capabilities. But a large number of wireless chargers are concentrated in low-end low-cost In the low-tech threshold, the rapid introduction and occupation of the market. The mid-to-high-end market that supports full wireless standard protocols, fast charging, high power, and one-machine multi-charge has yet to be further explored. Therefore, low-end low-cost products There will be greater price pressure, and high-end products still have a lot of room for development.
Comparing the two solutions, the shipment of Mega MCUs exceeds 150 million units
In fact, whether it is low-end or mid-to-high-end wireless chargers, the core cost is based on the evolution of the solution. At present, the transmitter is mainly divided into MCU and dedicated SoC.
'On the transmitter side, that is, the wireless charger solution, the current mainstream solution is still a MCU-controlled discrete solution. The low-end low-cost solution uses an 8-bit machine, and the high-end market uses a 32-bit machine. 'Jin Guangyi said that there are also some IC's. Manufacturers integrate MCU cores and analog peripheral peripherals, power devices into SoCs, the form of dedicated chips.
Currently, the discrete program is the most flexible and the cost can be optimized. It is the first choice for the current market price war. Compared with the cost of a dedicated chip, the discrete solution needs further optimization.
In addition, due to the charging protocol, charging power, fixed-frequency conversion, and different architectures and industry certifications, etc., it still needs to be improved. Therefore, the dedicated chip solution has yet to be evolved. However, in the long-term, the two solutions will coexist, and the market demand for short-term MCU solutions will be even greater. After all, in addition to the wireless charging function itself, other additional functions and selling points also require the control of the MCU, while the discrete program will be more convenient for the function increase and program expansion.
It is reported that many wireless charging companies in China have adopted mega-easy innovation MCUs. The GD32 series has become a major choice for domestic manufacturers. The GD32 series MCUs provide a product solution for wireless charging transmitters, and its GD32F130/ 330 series value-added MCUs provide on-chip memory resources with up to 84MHz of processing frequency and 64K Flash/8K RAM in the Cortex-M4 core. Up to 7 general-purpose timers, high-performance ADCs and various interface peripherals can handle the operation. Full wireless protocol stack resource overhead, and support for the development of additional features. QFN28 miniaturized package size of the chip is only 4x4mm, can maximize the flexibility in a limited layout space, and can continue to be the best value for money Respond to high-end wireless charging needs.
Jin Guangyi said that the current selection of GD32 MCUs in the design of a large number of wireless charging solutions has become the mainstream choice. With the pulling of Airpower and gradual improvement of industry standards, the shipment volume will also continue to grow. At present, the shipment volume has exceeded 150 million tablets.
Increased market competition, MCU or current mainstream choice
With the rapid development of the wireless charging market, the demand for MCUs will increase rapidly. The GD32 MCUs for mega-innovation are adopted by most wireless charging companies in China and shipped in large quantities. In addition to market demand factors, the international manufacturers ST And NXP is also indirectly promoting.
Since last year, ST's MCUs have been gradually out of stock and the delivery period has been extended. The industry pointed out that STMicroelectronics began to pass out of stock in the second half of last year. Out of stock products include: 8-bit MCUs, Cortex M0/M3/M4 etc. In the first quarter of this year, the situation has not improved. This year, ST has withdrawn from the 8-bit MCU chip market. In addition, in 2018, Apple’s new iPhone will be fully imported into 3D sensing. ST is the only supplier and IDM plant is bound to Continue to squeeze out the MCU capacity.
In addition, NXP began to increase prices for key products such as NXP’s MCUs and automotive microcontrollers from the first quarter of 2018, lengthening the lead time, and the price increase ranged from 5% to 10%. Domestic MCU manufacturers are in this wave. Continued to benefit from the shortage of goods.
Of course, for the application of MCU in wireless charging, the overall performance of the product must also be taken into consideration and the receiver must be matched. Jin Guangyi believes that the positioning of the wireless charging function determines whether it is necessary to support the complete wireless protocol and pass the Qi authentication. Testing on-load/communication unwrapping capability, foreign object detection, efficiency, compatibility, etc. The current discrete solution of 32-bit MCUs has the advantage of being more flexible, able to meet the needs of different power, multi-function development, and cost excellent.
On the other hand, the use of dedicated chip solutions has improved the degree of integration and stability, and is very suitable for standardization. However, the problems that need to be solved need to be further improved, such as the design of the voltage regulator architecture, the integration of power devices, and the current cost is not dominant.
Lu Huihong believes that the wireless charging chip is not a pure power device, but an SoC product. Therefore, it is necessary to focus on the development of system-level ICs. For the transmitter chip, the current market is more complex, and many wireless charging companies use MCUs and separate devices. For stacking designs, there are companies that use some integrated power devices (MOSFETs and Drivers) with MCUs to design TX solutions.
According to reports, given the maturity of MOSFET power devices, the ease of finding and the flexible nature of the supported solutions, Xinjie's transmit-end solution puts MOSFET power devices out of the chip.
Jin Guangyi believes that although mid- to high-end products using the MCU solution have relatively high technical content and relatively high selling prices, they can support the complete protocol, meet high security requirements, and bring a better user experience. Apple will have a price cut after opening MFi certification, so it will gradually occupy the mainstream market.
It is worth mentioning that, from the perspective of applications, the mobile phone wireless charging fast charging power is higher than 5W, which needs to take into account the performance of charging stability, charging efficiency, foreign object detection, and wireless interference to the mobile phone signal, etc. The requirements for wireless charging on the transmitter side will also increase simultaneously. From the current trend, wireless charging will be the standard for portable consumer electronics such as mobile phones, tablets, and watches. WPC's Qi standard has taken absolute dominant position. With standard The continuous updating and improvement will further standardize the wireless charging market and promote industrial upgrading. The wireless charging market will also become more competitive.