1. Interpretation of the meeting's financial report: Market technology shifts, screen fingerprints and 3D face recognition performance can be expected;
Original title: Interpretation of the meeting of the top financial science and technology: market technology shift, the next half of screen fingerprint and 3D face recognition performance can be
Micronet collection reported on April 28
The current smartphone market is shifting between the market and technology. This has also caused fluctuations in the supply chain's upstream and downstream manufacturers. On April 27, the largest Android chip supplier in the Android camp, Huiding Technology released the 2017 financial report and 2018 The first quarter earnings also reflect the current market volatility.
According to statistics, the business revenue for the whole year of 2017 was 3.681 billion yuan, up 19.56% year-on-year. The net profit was 887 million, up 3.5% year-on-year. The operating income was 571 million yuan in the first quarter of 2018, a decrease of 31% compared to the previous quarter. The net profit was 19.36 million yuan. .
For the above performance, Huiding Technology Chairman and CEO Zhang Fan said that the above financial statements were in line with our expectations. The first quarter was affected by multiple factors, and the performance was declining. However, the screening of optical fingerprint products in the second half of the year will become a new growth of the company. In addition, 3D face recognition solutions and NB-IoT first-generation products will complete the development of first-generation commercial products early this year and early next year, providing new momentum for our subsequent performance improvement.
Market, technology shift, insist on increasing R&D investment
From the market perspective, the Chinese smartphone market entered a downward cycle since the fourth quarter of last year. According to the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, shipments of domestic mobile phone brands continued to decline in the first quarter of this year, a year-on-year decrease of 28%.
The current Huiding technology fingerprint chip business accounts for nearly 80% of the company's revenue, so dramatic market changes will have an impact on the company's performance.
On the other hand, from a technical point of view, the current mainstream market for capacitive fingerprint chips is also becoming saturated, and the market has begun to switch to emerging technologies such as under-the-screen optical fingerprinting and 3D face recognition, which also takes some time to adjust.
Zhang Fan said that the first quarter was the convergence period of the company's new and old products. Due to the market competition and the high penetration rate of the products in mobile applications, the mature products had no significant increase in sales but the prices were still under pressure.
'Another factor in the slowdown in Huiding Technology's profits is the increase in research and development costs.' Zhang Fan further analyzed.
According to statistics, Huiding Technology's R&D expenditure in 2017 was 597 million yuan, an increase of 93.83% from 308 million yuan in 2016. This R&D investment has accounted for 16.2% of sales revenue.
In the shift period of the market, many listed companies will choose to compress R&D investment in order to have more beautiful financial report data. And Zhang Fan believes that 'any tech company must constantly develop new technologies, new products, and new markets. The pioneering and innovating, this is also an important reason why Huiding Technology invested heavily in R&D last year.
He also exemplifies R&D investment returns to the company. 'The company’s continuous input of optical fingerprint technology under the screen for the past five years has already gained world-leading technology advantages. It has been used in Huawei's first quarter of 2018. In six months, we will usher in more large-scale commercial use and become a new momentum for the growth of the company's performance.
The data shows that as of the end of 2017, there were 1,879 international and domestic patents applied for and received by Huiding Technology, which has more than doubled from the end of 2016.
Under the screen optical fingerprint performance deterministic, 3D face recognition or bring surprises
Zhang Fan expressed confidence in the company’s performance expectations for the year. In addition to the traditional products that will continue to expand into new markets, new technologies will usher in a harvest period in the second half of the year.
In the past year, Huiding Technology has expanded its business into fingerprint, mobile phone, IoT, and other fields in addition to the mobile fingerprinting chip market. For example, in the notebook field, including Dell, Huawei’s flagship products all use Huiding fingerprints. Technology, one-button boot + fingerprint recognition unlock function. In the automotive field, completed the first touch product certification in the automotive standard, opened up new space for the company's new market applications.
Even in the field of mature touch-control chips, Huiding Technology has done a lot of breakthrough work. Huiting believes that as the speed of 5G communication is about to increase, there will be some new changes and trends in the interactive mode of touch control. The company completed the development of a new generation of touch-control chips in 2017, which will help the company gain greater competitiveness in the large touch screen market in the AMOLED on-cell market and notebook applications.
Compared with the stock market, the new technology of Huiding Technology in the second half of the year - the screen under the optical fingerprint and 3D face recognition program deserves more attention.
In the first quarter of this year, Huawei, Vivo's two mainstream flagship mobile phones have adopted Huiding's new, under-the-screen optical fingerprinting technology. This is an absolute leader in the entire industry. Currently, there are market demands for optical fingerprints under the screen, and There is a wide range of commercial cases for the first-line brand manufacturers, and there is definite support for Huihuang’s performance in the second half of the year.
Zhang Fan believes that under-screen optical fingerprinting is a relatively definite application trend. Taking into account the actual price expectations of customers, the company hopes to control the sales price of under-the-screen optical fingerprinting products under $8. As the scale increases, the yield rate will increase and the cost will further increase. The decline will make a good profit contribution to the company. In terms of the screen's optical fingerprinting technology, it will work closely with OLED screen manufacturers. In terms of shipments, the whole year is expected to be tens of millions of levels.
In the face of 3D structured light face recognition, Huiding technology also has breakthroughs. According to Zhang Fan, the company has made significant progress in the new 3D face recognition technology. It not only has software algorithms, but also provides complete software such as optics, image sensors, etc. The overall hardware solution. This product has the advantages of low power consumption, small size, and many application scenarios. It is expected to release mass production this year.
One hundred billion market, commercial breakthrough of NB-IoT products
In the longer-term business layout, Huiding technology is locked in the NB-IoT field of the 100 billion-level market.
Earlier this year, Huiding Technology announced that it had entered the NB-IoT field by acquiring and acquiring the world's leading semiconductor cellular IP provider - CommSolid from Germany. At present, CommSolid has cooperated with globally renowned operators Orange, Deutsche Telekom, and Shanghai Telecom.
Zhang Fan said that as with the 3D face recognition solution, the company also has a complete system-on-chip solution that can provide NB-IoT SoCs (System-on-Chips). The German company has acquired a global leading protocol stack, combined with the top Its own RF chip development technology, will then provide users with SoCs overall solution, which is the company's basic philosophy of products.
He also revealed that the company's first-generation NB-IoT commercial products will be completed by the end of this year and early next year.
According to IHS Markit, a well-known market research agency, the number of global NB-IoT connections in 2021 will reach 450 million. In addition, Technavio predicts that the global NB-IoT chip market will achieve a CAGR of 61% from 2017 to 2021. On the whole, the current NB-IoT is on the eve of an eruption. Many standards and specifications are not yet mature. There is not much difference in the level of competition in this area. At the same time, the demand for diversification and fragmentation will also bring more opportunities for the exchange. .
In the author's opinion, the meeting of top companies in the NB-IoT area will become the company's third take-off direction. Prior to this, Huiding has undergone two major advances in history, the first being the selection of touch-control chip areas. It can be regarded as the process of meeting the ceiling from 0 to 1. It allows the company to become stable and mature, and promotes the company to achieve A-share listing. The second choice is the current main-industry fingerprint chip, which can be regarded as a process from 1 to 100. , It has made Huiding become the top ten IC design companies in China, and it has reached the top position in the world of fingerprints in the world of Android. This time, choosing the NB-IoT field with a ranking of RMB 100 billion will allow the company to realize the company’s growth rate from 100~. 1000 process, and grow into a world-class innovation and technology company.
2. Xiaomi Hao S2 processor exposure based on TSMC 16nm process;
After S1, the subsequent dynamics of Xiaomi's self-developer processor are much less, but no news does not mean that there is no progress. At this time, it is still a correct path to adhere to the self-developed processor, but it needs a huge amount of manufacturers. Patience and funding to support.
According to the Taiwan Electronic Times, Xiaomi has reached a secret agreement with TSMC, which will produce the S2 processor based on the 16nm process.
From the previous exposure, the S2 is based on TSMC's 16nm process and is still an eight-core design. It contains four A73s with a frequency of 2.2GHz and four A53s with a frequency of 1.8GHz. The built-in GPU is a Mali G71MP8. UFS2.1 and LPDDR4, do not support CDMA network, performance is equal to that of Unicorn 960.
For the specific details of S2, there are industry chain sources, Xiaomi has prepared several alternatives, so what is ultimately the case, when released is not yet clear, but at least it is certain that the processor will also Continue, and invest more energy.
3. Shanghai's development of a new generation of 'Chinese core'! Silicon photonics major special start;
One of Shanghai's first batch of municipal major science and technology major projects was held in Zhangjiang Laboratories yesterday. The silicon photonics technology enables photon as an information carrier to achieve the safety and reliability of signal transmission. It is expected to subvert The forward-looking technology of the traditional integrated circuit industry. To this end, the Shanghai municipal government has combined silicon photons with hard X-ray free electron lasers and international human phenotypic genomes as the first batch of municipal science and technology major projects, giving full support to them and striving to form a complete system in Shanghai. Silicon-based optical interconnect chip industry chain, to create a world-class silicon photonic base.
Academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Zhang Jiang Laboratory Director and Director of Silicon Photonics Special Projector Wang Hao introduced that in the field of communications and computing, optoelectronics technology is the basis and key for information generation, processing and transmission. For higher speeds, higher bandwidths, and lower The eternal pursuit of power consumption and lower cost drives the continuous advancement of optoelectronics technology and engenders opportunities for disruptive industrial development. At present, the development of the integrated circuit industry following Moore's Law has reached a limit, and silicon photonics technology is beyond Moore’s research. One of the development directions of the field. Through silicon optical integration, the use of light instead of electricity for transmission, chip development costs may be reduced to the original one-tenth or even lower.
How to seize the opportunities in the international competition in this field and use the emerging technologies to develop the 'China Core'? Last year, the Shanghai Municipal Government, after research and demonstration, listed silicon photonics as one of the first municipal major science and technology major projects. These projects have funds. With large investment, prominent synergy effects, and obvious supporting role, it effectively complements the country's major science and technology projects and is expected to promote the overall improvement of technological innovation capability and industrial core competitiveness of Shanghai and even the whole country.
Shanghai has a very good foundation for silicon photonics technology research and development. Over the years, universities, research institutes and enterprises in Shanghai have continued research in this area. On the other hand, Shanghai’s integrated circuit industry is in a leading position in the country and is relatively complete. The industry chain, conditions for the use of large-scale integrated circuit technology for optoelectronic integration, to create a new generation of silicon-based optical interconnect chips.
Academician Wang Hao (left)
The deputy director of the Municipal Science and Technology Commission said that the silicon photonics project was led by Zhang Jiang, a group of companies in Shanghai engaged in in-depth research and development in the field of silicon photonics, universities and research institutes participated in, facing the entire industry chain of silicon photonics, and developing silicon for domestic use. Photonics is the most scarce process platform, core and key technology and key product R & D precision layout, launch laser radar, artificial intelligence computing chip, large-scale optical switch, 3D photoelectric integration and other cutting-edge research with great potential for application.
He hoped that after the launch of 'Sifang Photonic City Major Project', he could further assemble a basic team of all aspects of production, education, and research. The United Nations internal and external forces will drive the development of upstream and downstream industries and accelerate the formation of a complete silicon-based optical interconnection chip industry chain in Shanghai. Create a world-class silicon photonic base.
It is reported that Zhangjiang Laboratories will lead the project team to build a silicon photon R&D pilot platform by expanding the capabilities of the Shanghai Micro-Tech Industrial Research Institute's functional platform for R&D and transformation, developing common technologies, serving the innovation, entrepreneurship and core of the silicon photonics field. Technical breakthroughs; Support a group of core product development, break international monopoly, get rid of people's situation, foster competitive and innovative companies; guide and forward-looking technology research and development, break through the core bottlenecks and problems in the silicon photonics field.
Wang Hao stated that the project team will work together in a concerted effort to strengthen the strategic planning and research through the establishment of an efficient project management mechanism, and further open up synergies and other initiatives to promote the implementation of major projects from a global perspective. (Author Yu Taoran)
Shangguan News
4. The rising tide of Chinese TVs in color TV sets depends entirely on refined manufacturing.
Not only communication chips, but also most of China's color TV chips rely on imports. However, Chinese chip makers such as Hass and Amlogic are in the rising period in the color TV chip market. Skyworth and other color TV companies are also releasing their own AI quality chips.
Skyworth Group Chief Technology Officer (CTO) Wang Zhiguo told CBC reporter on April 24th that the color TV chips must be fully domesticated with a bottleneck in fine manufacturing and patents. He optimistically expects that color TV chips will be able to be domestically produced within three years.
China is the world's largest color TV manufacturing base, but 'Less Core Screening' has been plaguing China's color TV industry in the past. With the strong rise of domestic LCD TV panel industry, color TV chips will be the next 'fortress' that Chinese companies are waiting to overcome.
Color TV China core multi-strength
In early 2018, at the CES in the United States, Skyworth displayed its own AI (Artificial Intelligence) quality chip independently developed. As early as 2014, Skyworth, a subsidiary of Skyworth's handheld Huawei, shared the national nuclear high-level major projects and developed together. The first intelligent TV chip V800 with China's independent intellectual property rights fills the void of China's TV system chip.
Wang Zhiguo disclosed to the First Financial Reporter that Skyworth was the first to apply the V800 to Internet TV. There are millions of such TVs.
The First Financial reporter noted on April 24th at Skyworth’s 30th anniversary that Hass acquired strategies with chip companies such as MStar (Star), Realtek, SK Hynix, Toshiba, Taiwan, South Korea and Japan. Cooperation award.
This year's independently developed AI quality chip exhibited by Skyworth is in cooperation with the Taiwanese chip company Novatek. 'We define the chip, design it with them, and look for the production in Taiwan.' Wang Zhiguo said, Skyworth's research and development AI quality chip It is hoped that through the artificial intelligence technology, the old movie and TV content can also achieve the improvement of the picture quality, thereby realizing the differentiation of the color TV.
This AI quality chip will be integrated into the main chip of the TV and used in Skyworth's own TV products. Wang Zhiguo expects this year's TV application opportunities will reach millions.
Interestingly, Skyworth’s headquarter building in Shenzhen is known as Skyworth Semiconductor Design Tower. Wang Zhiguo revealed that Skyworth will continue to increase chip R&D efforts. Skyworth Digital has acquired a chip company. In addition, Skyworth also cooperates with external partners. Develop chips. He even imagined that future domestic companies can jointly invest in color TV chip factories and design custom chips.
Not only Skyworth, Hisense, TCL, Konka and other mainstream Chinese color TV companies also have access to the chip field.
In June 2005, Hisense has developed China's first digital video processing chip with independent intellectual property rights and industrialization - Xinxin, breaking the monopoly of foreign companies in digital video processing chips. Hisense also developed in 2013. China's first network multimedia TV SOC master chip, and achieve mass production. In 2015, Hisense released Hi-View Pro picture quality engine chip, becoming China's color TV company with independent high-end picture quality chips.
TCL Group Chairman and CEO Li Dongsheng revealed last year that TCL has been a shareholder of two chip companies since 2013, namely, DT.3545 and Amlogic. It is understood that DT Electronics, The morning was established by senior Chinese experts in the Silicon Valley chip industry in the United States. Duntech Electronics was incorporated in the United States in 2005 and moved back to Asia in 2006. R&D and engineering service centers were established in Shenzhen and Taiwan, dedicated to man-machine interface solutions. R & D. Crystal morning was founded in 1995, headquartered in Shanghai, the main smart TV and set-top box smart chip design.
Konka also independently developed the 8K chip, which can control the gray level of each pixel of the screen and realize the full 8K signal processing.
Taiwanese companies still dominate the market
At present, Chinese Taiwanese companies still dominate the global color TV chip market.
Zhang Bing, Research Director of China Research Institute IHS, told the First Financial Reporter that in the main TV chip field, MStar (Chengxing Semiconductor) is the absolute leader, accounting for more than 40% of the global market share; the top three suppliers are Mstar, Media tek (also known as MTK or 'MediaTek') and Novatek (Union Technology), their market share is roughly 40%, 16% and 15%, and these three are Chinese Taiwanese companies.
Mainland China's chip companies are also rising. Zhang Bing said that Hass currently holds more than 5% of the global color TV chip market share, and Amlogic (chip Chen), RDA (RDA, has been acquired by Violet) and other chip makers share Both are relatively small. Despite the small share, chip companies in China are in a rising period.
A former MStar employee told CBN that the global color TV chip market is currently dominated by two Chinese Taiwanese companies, MStar and MTK. MTK has acquired MStar in 2010, and the two companies together hold the global color TV chip market share. About 60%. Taiwan's another company Realtek (REALTEK) is also an important supplier of color TV chips.
This person said that in the supplier of domestic color TV chips, Hass has already provided small-scale supply; Another supplier, Amlogic, is a US-led American-owned company and is currently seeking domestic listing. Supplying chips. The two companies are the major forces outside the Taiwanese company.
The First Financial reporter learned from Skyworth, Hisense, and TCL that Mstar is currently the largest supplier of color TV chips. Another industry source told the First Financial reporter that Hass has also cooperated with several major domestic color power plants. Group CTO Wang Zhiguo admitted that different color TV chip vendors have their own strengths. For example, MStar is good at intelligent voice chips, Novatek is good at picture quality engines, Hass has domestically owned independent intellectual property rights.
At present, color TV chips account for about 5% of the total cost of the TV sets. Zhang Bing said that the color TV chips involved more than 10 kinds of chips, including power management, audio processing and other functions. Skyworth, Hisense's AI painting Quality chip and picture quality engine chip, mainly picture quality enhancement chip, similar to Sony's X1 Extreme, enhance color TV image control and processing to achieve better picture quality.
Because of the fierce competition in the color TV industry and the high cost requirements, the color TV chip has a high degree of integration, covering the central processor, image processors, etc. The WIFI module, AI module, and the future also have the opportunity to integrate into color TV chips. The staff of (MStar) said that the cost of the main color TV chip is less than US$10, the cost of the main board, including the main chip, is about RMB 100-200, and the cost of the 55-inch LCD TV is about RMB 2,000, which is not high. .
However, the 'fortress' that captured the color TV chips are still of great significance. Because China is the world's largest color TV production base, more than 60% of TV production worldwide comes from China. Data from AVC shows that in 2017, TVs and semi-finished TVs exported to mainland China reach 102 million units. If you add about 50 million units to domestic sales, China will produce nearly 150 million color TVs a year. China has such a huge color TV capacity. How can we make television? The machine's 'heart' is subject to people?
Refined manufacturing needs to be broken
So, where is the localization of color TV chips difficult?
The former MStar employees believe that China’s color TVs had previously “lost the core and display less screens”, and the localization of screens has been gradually resolved, while the chips are still mainly imported, mainly due to difficulties in chip development and production processes. Hass, Amlogic The chip design capabilities have basically met the demand for color TV products. In the early years, their chip design capabilities have reached the level of 14 nanometers. Of course, the better the chip factory technology, the higher the integration level and the lower the cost.
In terms of production, SMIC can currently produce 28-nanometer chips, while Taiwanese companies can already produce 10-nanometer chips. Therefore, HiSilicon and Amlogic designed the chips to find TSMC to produce them. Otherwise, they would not be competitive.
In fact, more than three years ago, the V800 chip jointly developed by Skyworth and Hass was produced by SMIC. This year, the AI quality chip introduced by Skyworth is to find Taiwanese companies to produce.
Wang Zhiguo believes that the key to the localization of color TV chips is wafers. If we look at the design customization, localization of color TV chips has already been realized. Like Amlogic, Spreadtrum and others can all design chips, but they still have to look for someone to produce. So, the future Improve the fine manufacturing capabilities, in order to truly realize the localization of color TV chips.
However, Wang Zhiguo believes that as long as he has great determination, the country attaches great importance to, and the support of resources and participation of large companies, it is possible to break the bottleneck of refined manufacturing. He is optimistic that within three years, localization of color TV chips can be realized, and of course, patent issues will also arise. .
Zhang Bing said calmly that there are many types of color TV chips, many of which involve infrastructure, patents, etc. Localization cannot be broken short-term. However, 'China has a strong local brand and manufacturing base, and the development of the chip industry requires an economic scale. , This is the market advantage of local suppliers such as Hass and RDA. “The color TV SoC chip is mainly adopting 28nm process. In the next 1-2 years, high-end products will go to 22nm, and the chip demand will continue to iterate. 8K chip.
In the future, more and more domestic brands will use domestic color TV chips; Chinese Taiwanese companies will gradually set up joint ventures in mainland China to increase their share in the Chinese market; Japanese and South Korean chip companies will decline, but they will still be strong in memory. ; Qualcomm and other US companies still occupy the high-end market, because they master ARM chips.' Wang Zhiguo predicts.
Another industry insider also optimistically stated that SMIC can produce 28nm chips and will continue to improve in the future. Localization of color TV chips in the future will not be a problem. The entire chip industry chain is shifting to mainland China, such as TSMC already in Nanjing. Set up a plant, it is expected to take a film this year and mass production next year.