——Interview with Li Kejun, Chairman of Huaxia Core General Processor Co., Ltd.
Recently, the status quo and development of the domestic chip industry have become a hot topic of online public opinion. At the same time, it has also triggered many reflections on the future development path of China's integrated circuit industry.
Then, how can China's future crack the 'core' pain? How should the IC industry realize the breakthrough of 'change lanes and overtaking'? For this purpose, the reporter interviewed Li Ke, Chairman of China Charm (Beijing) General-Purpose Processor Co., Ltd. Hey, this company is the only high-end heterogeneous computing chip design company in China with all its own CPU, DSP and AI.
Two-line strategy: one is the bottom line, one is the skyline
Reporter: The recent ZTE incident has made ICs the focus of public opinion. How do you view the current overall development of China's integrated circuit industry?
Li Kebiao: Overall, China's integrated circuit industry has made gratifying progress over the past decade, but most of these improvements are still only 'points' breakthroughs, and have not fundamentally changed the overall strength of the industry and advanced countries, especially It's a big gap with the United States.
China is already the second largest economy in the world. In the current global IC industry structure, it is quite normal for the United States with the first economy to have a degree of industrial interdependence. In fact, between China and the United States. The competition for integrated circuits does not have to evolve into a zero-sum game. It is entirely in accordance with the spirit of the 'human destiny community' advocated by us. By making original and revolutionary innovations, we can jointly undertake the promotion of the global new generation of information technology and even humankind. The responsibility for the further development of material civilization.
Of course, how to develop the integrated circuit industry, each country has its own national interests and security considerations. Especially in the context of the ZTE event, the Chinese integrated circuit industry has profoundly realized that key technologies cannot rely on aggression. Only self-reliance '. China's integrated circuit industry can only be determined to maintain its perseverance and focus. It can neither be self-sufficient or blindly conceited. It can only advance in the midst of difficulties and it can truly usher in a new round of high-speed development in the spring. .
Reporter: According to your understanding, how can various social resources, including government resources, better play their respective roles in the development of the integrated circuit industry?
Li Kebiao: I think we must clearly distinguish which links need the government to perform the corresponding duties and what links should be allocated to the market to allocate resources.
The IC industry has its own rules of technological development. Some of these areas can be developed in a manner similar to the government-dominated and military systems common to the military and aerospace industries. However, the ultimate choice of technologies and products in most fields lies in the market. Therefore, China Integrated circuit development can take two main lines of development strategy: one is the bottom line, and the other is the skyline.
The so-called bottom-line strategy is based on national information security and must possess technology, including domestic desktop CPUs, operating systems, key production processes and equipment. These areas can be completely government-led and socially involved; they can be completely closed, or they can be Partially open, even completely open ecology; You don’t have to pursue advanced performance, but you must be safe and controllable. Take the strategy “You have, I have”. The purpose is to avoid getting stuck and to target the most advanced level in the world. Research.
Another skyline strategy is to encourage innovation, especially cutting-edge innovation, disruptive innovation, and original innovation. These areas should be led by social resources, open to the outside world, integrate into the international mainstream, and even develop into a mainstream. China 3G, 4G The development path of 5G is a good proof. In these areas, the government's responsibilities should focus more on industrial policies, improve the business environment for the development of integrated circuits, and make the four major chains of integrated circuits: innovation chains, capital chains, and talents. Chains and industrial chains form a concerted effort, and more specifically, they improve the institutional environment of finance, taxation, international trade, human resources, and intellectual property protection, optimize the market environment, and better release the innovation vitality of all types of innovations.
Startups and small and medium-sized companies are the source of industry development
Reporter: In recent years, China's integrated circuit industry has made considerable progress in some areas. Some people think that the concentration of integrated circuits in China is not enough. There are too many small and medium-sized companies, which leads to the dispersion of resources. What do you think of this view?
Li Kezhen: If you look at the manufacturing process alone, the degree of concentration is indeed higher and higher. This is mainly because the input of new production plants has been greatly improved. However, in the design process, although the mergers and acquisitions between design companies have been one after another in the past 10 years, the global The ranking of the top 10 design companies is constantly changing, and innovation is still the main line that leads the sustainable development of the industry.
Personally think that the sign of the rise of China's semiconductor industry does not lie in which day Huawei beats Qualcomm, but whether China has formed a complete innovation chain composed of academics, start-ups, SMEs, and giants of the industry. History: At each IC technology change and industrial transformation, new industry leaders are often not former industry monopolies. For example, in the field of artificial intelligence, Intel's development momentum is obviously inferior to that of Nvidia. In the field of embedded processors, RISC The rise of V, to a certain extent, has constituted a threat to ARM. Generally, disruptive innovations often come from small companies because they only survive innovation. Therefore, start-ups and small and medium-sized companies are the source of industry development. The current giants such as ARM, Nvidia, etc., at the outset, were all small and unknown companies. At the same time, many small and innovative companies in Europe and America were eventually acquired by large companies and became the source of technological innovation for large companies.
Reporter: Huaxia Core is an IP company. At present, the vast majority of chip design companies in China have already authorized ARM's IP. What are the marketing strategies of Huaxia Core?
Li Kejun: A foreign IP giant monopolizes China's high-end processor design. This is not a normal thing in itself. IP is the most upstream node of the IC industry chain and represents the core intellectual property and key of chip design. The ability of independent innovation of technology has great use for the development and radiation of downstream industries.
China should have its own ARM, instead of pinning the core intellectual property of China's integrated circuits and the key technology's innovative capabilities to others. It should improve and complete the supply chain, the key IP node in the industry chain. We only need to give foreign giants and Ethnic enterprises, especially small and medium-sized private enterprises, have a fairer market position and inspire entrepreneurial innovation. China's unfavorable situation in which core technologies are controlled by people will quickly change.
Huaxia core is the only commercial integrated circuit company in China that has its own proprietary 64-bit high-end CPU, DSP, AI and other processor IP cores, and is engaged in IP licensing and chip custom design. We are the in-depth cooperation between global chip companies and end product manufacturers. Partners. In the application of choice, we have been targeting smart driving, security monitoring, robots (19.910, -0.21, -1.04%), computer vision, smart home, industrial Internet, Internet of things, 5G and other emerging fields. First, we are optimistic about these areas. The potential of the market in the future. Second, there is no so-called 'ecological problem' and monopoly giant in these areas.
IC industry needs to cultivate asymmetric competitive advantage
Reporter: You have always mentioned that the global integrated circuit industry including the United States is migrating to China. What do you think we should do to further promote the rise of the integrated circuit industry?
Li Kejun: In the past few years, the United States has indeed experienced a significant decline in industrial advantages in many areas. However, it still has a strongest innovation system integrating talent, capital, education and scientific research, and industrial applications.
Under China's current basic conditions, it is not necessary and it is difficult for every node in the semiconductor industry chain to have full competition with the United States. We need to have a global strategic vision to finally grasp the right of the world's semiconductor industry. In addition, South Korea Our successful experience is worthy of our research and reference. In this round of economic crisis in South Korea, integrated circuits surpassed traditional competitive industries such as steel, shipbuilding, and automobiles as one of the largest export industries, accounting for 17% of the total. South Korea’s core experience lies in the government. With the long-term sustained investment in independent innovation and counter-cyclical investment, taking the processor as an example, the Korean government and Samsung have been actively promoting the development of new-generation CPUs and GPUs with independent intellectual property rights and industrialization. Why Korea can, and China cannot These are the aspects that we should learn from and think about.
Reporter: As far as the current situation is concerned, how should China's integrated circuit industry achieve the breakthrough of 'change lanes and overtaking'? What areas can be the breakthrough?
Li Kezheng: The integrated circuit industry has the characteristics of large investment and long cycle. Under the realistic environment of globalized division of labor, even if it is as powerful as the United States, it is impossible to achieve a complete industrial chain layout. The development of China's integrated circuit industry must be integrated with China. The actual situation is to select the breakthrough point of the industry and cultivate asymmetric competitive advantage. Such a breakthrough must have sufficient market demand support. It must have a scale-driven effect on downstream industries. Therefore, I think that the new generation of heterogeneous computing platforms is A very good choice. Internet of things, cloud computing, big data, and artificial intelligence have brought tremendous development space to the development of the information industry, but at the same time it has brought new requirements for chip computing, power consumption, etc. The computing architecture chip, or "CPU+", integrates different types of processor cores such as CPUs, GPUs, DSPs, and accelerators efficiently on the same chip to achieve collaborative computing, collaborative storage, and collaborative management. The power consumption and other technical indicators are several times or even tens of times higher than the existing homogeneous multi-core processors.
Heterogeneous computing has provided China's integrated circuit industry with an opportunity that has not been surpassed for decades. Because in this field, people are basically on the same starting line. Some technical aspects even have advantages in China. If China catches this rare opportunity, The historical opportunities, increased investment, it is entirely possible to profoundly influence or even lead the development of related industries, become the rule-makers of new markets, and realize the long-awaited 'change lane overtaking'.