This year, Alibaba, Baidu, Xiaomi, and operator channels have each launched their own smart speakers. The upgraded version of Alibaba's Lynx Wizard will be released soon. Among them, in the upstream chip makers, except MediaTek, Quanzhi Technology, previously Beijing Junzheng, which integrates Amazon's Alexa's chip solution and ships batches in overseas markets, also began to transfer to the domestic market. The first far-field intelligent voice speaker product integrating Baidu DuerOS intelligent voice platform began to supply channels to telecom operators. .
At the just-concluded China Wisdom Family Expo and the 9th Shenzhen (International) Integrated Circuit Technology Innovation and Application Exhibition, Beijing Junzheng was exhibiting with a full range of products, including a far-field intelligent voice speaker product equipped with Baidu DuerOS. Shenzhen Jun Liu Shi, general manager of the era, received an interview with Jiwei.com, revealing that smart speakers using the Junzhen X1800 chip have begun shipping, and the first shipments are on the scale of hundreds of thousands.
The first shipment of hundreds of thousands
In 2017, smart speaker market shipments grew 10 times. Driven by giants such as Amazon and Google, domestic Internet companies and hardware vendors began to mushroom. However, domestic Internet giant Baidu released Baidu DuerOS in July last year. After the voice platform), there is no third-party manufacturer of smart speakers running DuerOS.
Until the first quarter of this year, smart speakers based on Baidu DuerOS began shipping through terminal brands. Liu said that in the smart speaker market, Jun Zheng is mainly cooperating with Baidu, and smart speakers based on Baidu DuerOS are now starting to output. goods.
In addition, in the operator market, the smart speaker S1 introduced by Shenzhen Pepper Technology Co., Ltd. (hereafter referred to as Little Pepper) is using Junzheng's solution and is currently shipping through telecom operators. Xiaoli Smart Speaker S1 support Intelligent voice-on-demand, support for online music, comic dialogues, children's stories, radio stations and other massive resources, while supporting voice control of home appliances, can control access to Baidu intelligent voice platform manufacturers equipment.
Liu said that Jun is currently the main push in the smart speaker market is the X1800 chip, which is a solution to support four-microphone arrays, supports software noise reduction and echo cancellation processing, Baidu and Pepper's smart speaker products have landed, first The supply of batch chips is on the scale of hundreds of thousands. It is reported that Tencent also has smart audio products to cooperate with Jun Zheng, and the products are being landed.
Accumulation advantage
In fact, Jun is starting to make WiFi speakers in 2014. In 2015, he began to make key-press speech recognition speakers. In 2016, he began to make 1-3 meters of speech recognition speakers. In 2017, he began to use 3-5 meters of far-field intelligence. Voice Speakers, has continuously accumulated sophisticated audio solutions from hardware platforms, front-end algorithms, speech semantics to content services.
This is why Jun Zheng is able to quickly import Baidu and operator channel smart speaker products. So, compared to Quan Zhi Technology, Amlogic and other chip makers, what are the specific advantages of Jun Zheng?
Liu thinks that the solution of Junzhen smart speaker is to use the main CPU + co-processor, can run the software's noise reduction algorithm on a single-core CPU, and solve the problem of inaccurate far-field pickup from 3-5 meters. Eliminating the hardware DSP; At the same time, in the CPU itself, SIP encapsulates 64MB of DDR. From the point of view of integration, the entire solution will be very streamlined, which is more cost-effective for the design of the entire hardware.
At the same time, since DDR is already packaged in the chip, the number of layers in the entire PCB board can be replaced by two panels with four panels, which will greatly reduce the PCB area of the entire solution, and the peripheral circuit design will also be more streamlined. Visible, Junzheng X1800 chip program supports 4 wheat configuration and specifications with a very strong product competitiveness, cost-effective advantage is more obvious. In addition, Junzheng is independently developed by the embedded processor, using the MIPS instruction set, in terms of low power consumption It also has advantages. Last year, the Alex X1000E program integrated Alexa voice assistant for Anker made car charging equipment, in the United States market is very popular.
Targeting the market
At present, the domestic smart speaker market is mainly divided into three echelons. The first echelon is represented by Tmall Genie and Xiaomi Speakers. The overall shipment volume and cost performance are high. This is mainly due to the fact that these companies use smart speakers as entrances. Look at it, so consider at the hardware and channel level, Alibaba and Xiaomi can use this form to capture the market without earning money or even subsidies.
The second echelon is based on JD.com and other back-end manufacturers, but there are not many shipments from these companies. However, in the context of the smart speaker market, the hardware products are not based on profit. Lord, more still want to enrich the product form, bring consumers some value-added features, to attract user groups.
The third echelon is a manufacturer that has started to transform traditional speaker products and pursue profitability. These manufacturers are not dominant in the market competition between the first echelon and the second echelon, and it is difficult to make substantial breakthroughs in shipments this year. , It is estimated that by 2019, these smart speaker products themselves are expected to be profitable. At this stage, the domestic smart speaker market is still in the consumer cultivation stage. In this process, Internet companies use subsidies to promote the development of the entire market. Still very helpful.
Liu said that the smart speaker market that Mr. Zheng is targeting this year is still based on the industrial market. This market needs a complete solution and can promote the program to the industry channel market through the shortest path. The king is in the smart audio market. After four years of experience, the complete solution of Junzheng X1800 is still very advantageous.
As a whole, the voice interaction technology brought by smart audio has matured to the present stage, but the terminal market is most concerned with smart speaker-based product forms. In the smart audio market, the interactive form will be continuously upgraded and will In the form of various smart products, smart terminals around smart homes will also have more forms of voice interaction, including smart TVs, home appliances, etc., and Jun Zhengdu has begun cooperation and layout with different industry chain vendors.