Xia Bin has served in Marvell, which is known as the 'cradle of China's integrated circuits,' for 14 years. In the chip industry for more than a decade, Xia Bin formed his own views on the development of domestic chips. He believes that chip technology is a kind of For the study of partial basic classes, chip development should follow the law of its technological development.
So, what are the current problems of domestic chips? How to rise in the future of China's chips? Around the above issues, during the World Mobile Congress, Xia Bin accepted an interview with the reporter of "Daily Economic News" on June 28.
AI+IoT Wisdom is a trend
NBD: At present, many enterprises are deploying cellular Internet of Things. What are the current application scenarios of cellular Internet of Things? What is the future development of IoT chips?
Xia Bin: The technology of cellular Internet of Things has only been developed in recent years. There are two specific application scenarios: On the one hand, for public service areas, such as smart meter reading, in the past, the settlement of hydropower coal relied on manual door-to-door meter reading. Now, using cellular IoT technology, remote meter reading can be realized. Under the condition of cellular Internet of Things, the use of equipment can be monitored, and the abnormal situation of gas and water and electricity equipment can be sensed in time to play an early warning role.
In addition, consumer application scenarios are also common, such as linking with smart living, positioning and tracking equipment items, as well as applications in agriculture, animal husbandry, and environmental monitoring.
At present, the entire IoT industry is still in the development stage. Many application scenarios are in the process of continuous development, and the application is not widespread. However, with the continuous expansion of application scenarios, the demand for IoT chips will be very strong in the future. Huge. The mobile phone we use has basically reached the scale of one person, and the market has a saturated trend. But the IoT chip is different, it acts as a communication carrier between objects, so each node of the Internet of Things has an implanted chip. The demand, the chip can enter the refrigerator, air conditioning, washing machine, security monitoring and other equipment and achieve connectivity, in fact, the number of IoT chips will be ten times or even dozens of times the size of the mobile phone.
NBD: At present, the concept of 'AI+' is very hot. What do you think about the current 'smart association'? How does artificial intelligence integrate with the Internet of Things?
Xia Bin: Wisdom is now a trend. The era of artificial intelligence requires the products of the Internet of Things to play its role in collecting data. First, artificial intelligence needs to have certain data as support, and the Internet of Things can provide data for each scene, so that Artificial intelligence back-end machines can analyze and learn based on these data. Moreover, collecting data is the natural advantage of the Internet of Things. Life, industry, agriculture and other aspects have the needs of the Internet of Things. So whether it is technical or practical. In applications, the Internet of Things and artificial intelligence are a natural combination.
Chip development cannot rely on short-term capital chasing
NBD: Konka, Gree and many other domestic companies have announced their entry into the chip field. What do you think of this?
Xia Bin: Regardless of the industry or the investment community, you may not be aware of the technological development of the chip. It is very different from the development of the Internet's 'short and fast'. The chip product has a long development cycle and high input cost. It is completely another business. Mode, it is not enough to rely on short-term enthusiasm and capital chasing.
Judging from the experience of more than ten years in my industry, chip technology is a kind of partial-based research. It is impossible to achieve the effect of 'immediately'. It also requires a lot of talents and funds, as well as the accumulation of time, rather than a kind of ' The way of the Great Leap Forward to catch up with developed countries, the development of domestic chips must follow this rule.
NBD: At what stage is China's chip research and development? What are the problems that need to be solved?
Xia Bin: At present, China's chip research and development has accumulated a lot of funds and technology in design, including some aspects of the combination of Internet of Things and artificial intelligence and big data. At this stage, our research and development is mainly to overcome manufacturing equipment and Weakness in materials. Because the chip is a complete industrial chain, including design, manufacturing, testing, production and other aspects, from the current Chinese chip industry, our design capabilities are not weak, we are now weak in manufacturing equipment And materials.
In addition, we are also faced with the shortage of talents and the compression of profit margins. The first is the talent problem. The gap in the talent sector of the domestic chip industry is a relatively big problem. At present, the chip industry has accumulated a lot of funds and technology, and there are opportunities for development. But the final implementation still depends on people. The front line of chip research and development is very long. I am more worried about whether the younger generation will come to the industry now. The reason why the domestic Internet is developing well is because the domestic Internet talents are not Lost abroad, but now the talents who are willing to work in the chip industry are far less than foreign countries, so the talent gap is a big challenge.
In addition, the profit margin of the domestic chip industry has also been severely compressed. Relatively speaking, the profit margin of domestic chip companies is smaller than that of foreign companies. The primary reason is that the added value of domestic chips is not high enough. Secondly, the domestic industry atmosphere tends to lead to follow-up, a company. When you make a product, there will soon be other companies to imitate, and homogenization competition will easily compress profit margins.
NBD: According to China Semiconductor Industry Association, China's dependence on high-end chips is also expanding year by year. The value of imported chips is more than 200 billion US dollars. Under such circumstances, how do you think Chinese chips should rise?
Xia Bin: At present, the scale of China's chip imports is indeed very large, and it has almost become the largest trade deficit. This situation is mainly due to China's lack of accumulation of high-end chips, independent research and development capabilities are weak, unable to achieve self-sufficiency, direct results That is, we lose the bargaining power. It should be emphasized that this situation is not a comparison of the quality of imported products and domestic products, but rather that there is no competing products directly leading to the entire chip system manufacturers have no bargaining power, the entire chip industry The pricing power is subject to foreign countries.
At present, the scale of the trade deficit of more than 200 billion US dollars cannot be said to be reduced or reduced. It still needs some alternatives in the domestic chip industry. It is not required to be replaced immediately, but we can change from some points to achieve a certain balance or Forming its own characteristics. This will be promoted from point to point, to promote the progress of the entire chip industry. After all, China's chip market is very large, such a market environment has the opportunity to cultivate a large enterprise like Qualcomm, we still need to give more More opportunities and patience, I personally feel that we should be able to accomplish such a goal within the next ten years.