Yesterday, Reuters reported that ZTE lifted the ban, and Hong Kong stocks ZTE rose 25%. It seems that the crisis has passed. Not to mention that the US Senate is obstructing the lifting of the ban. In fact, there are hidden challenges behind the chip.
ZTE's lack of core makes China heartache. But we are not only the hardware part of the chip, but also the core part of the software we can't see, but the communication standard. If there is no communication standard, no matter how advanced the chip, our iphone will still Degenerate into an itouch.
In short, the communication standard is a technical consensus, embedded in the chip, making interconnection between different brands of mobile phones possible.
Today, mobile phones around the world can talk to each other because everyone agrees to use a standard. Standard developers can charge high royalty fees to all users, empty gloves and white wolves.
Behind each generation of standards, the conspiracy calculations of the various forces, indiscriminately fighting, in order to win the standard hegemony, is an invisible war.
'The first-class enterprise sets the standard, the second-rate enterprise makes the brand, the third-rate enterprise makes the product', reveals the true meaning of the high-tech industry in one sentence.
From 1G to 4G, in the history of communication standards, there are countless blood and tears that we can't see. With the 5G era approaching, facing internal and external troubles, can China finally take the lead?
From 1G, your older brother's big brother
1G calls, 2G chat QQ, 3G brush microblogging, 4G watching video. Everything has to start from the most basic 'call'.
In 1986, the Motorola 8000X was born in Chicago, USA, and the first generation of mobile communication technology (1st Generation, referred to as 1G) was on the stage.
Motorola 8000X, was kindly called by the Chinese people as 'Big Brother'. Why is it called Big Brother? First, because in the '10,000 yuan household' era, if you want to use Big Brother, you must first pay 6,000 yuan for the network access fee, and each The minute fee is 0.5 yuan, just like the current 'Northern Guangzhou-Shenzhen Room', which makes people look stunned. At that time, if anyone pulls out a big brother from behind, everyone around them has a soft knee, squatting, whispering in his mouth. 'You are the big brother... You are the big brother...'. Second, because the Motorola 8000X is huge, shaped like a brick, it will have an unexpected effect in the gang fight, and it won the gangster big brother, so it is named 'big brother' Big' .
But Big Brother has not left for a long time, and has withdrawn from the stage of history. What is the reason?
In order to prevent human beings from building towers and letting humans speak different languages, the players in the communications industry were unfortunate, using different 'language' from the beginning.
In the 1G era, the communication systems of different countries were incompatible with each other, which led to the incompatibility of equipment from various countries. For example, Motorola and Ericsson, the giants of the year, used their own band standards and could not call each other.
In order to build a Tongtian Tower in the communications industry, everyone realized that they must use the same standards and say the same thing.
1G-2G: Start speaking the same language
If you want everyone to speak the same language, there is no doubt that everyone wants to use their own.
European countries are not lacking in communication giants such as Sweden and Finland, but they also realize that it is better to hold a group to warm up than to fight alone. Under the discussion, several European communications giants decided to jointly study mobile communication technology standards, and determined to let mobile phones around the world use together. A standard, let everyone take the phone to the world, to build the Tongtian Tower of the mobile communications world.
When I went to the business office to run the SIM card, the salesperson Miss Sister usually asked, do 'Shenzhouxing', 'Mental Zone' or 'Global Pass'? This 'Global Pass' is what is the result of European union.
In 1991, Europe launched the Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM). The GSM standard uses TDMA (Time Division Multiple Access) to achieve 1G analog communication at transmission rate and openness, and soon became The mainstream standard in the 2G era.
2G-3G: Qualcomm covers the sky
You may have never seen a product before, but you are paying it every day. It is the most 'lazy hate' company in the communications industry, a nightmare for almost all companies that can't sleep at night.
It is Qualcomm.
Everything has to start with CDMA (code division multiple access technology). Qualcomm was the promoter of CDMA in the early 2G era, but the action was not fast enough, resulting in the loss of the market, and finally hate to leave. But many people did not realize that CDMA technology belt The load capacity is more than 10 times that of GSM, and TDMA is exhausted at the technical level.
Just when people were still immersed in TDMA technology, Qualcomm built a CDMA patent wall around power control, co-frequency multiplexing and other technologies, and incorporated all patents related to CDMA technology. A protracted conspiracy kicked off.
First, Qualcomm puts patented technology into communication standards and implements the standard so that most mobile phones can talk to each other based on the standard.
Then we recruited a group of patent attorneys who are no less than the technical team. When everyone used CDMA technology to use it, they quickly seized the handle, opened the patent lawsuit, and punish the opponent for a bloody river.
Next, Qualcomm embeds the CDMA algorithm into the chip to provide a complete system on chip (SoC) solution.
At that time, most mobile phone manufacturers did not have the technical capabilities of SoC integration. So Qualcomm said to mobile phone manufacturers, 'You buy communication baseband, CPU, GPU, sound card network card chip one by one, too much trouble. So, I will give you a package, All combined into one chip, small and exquisite oh. Mobile phone manufacturers failed to hold the temptation of Qualcomm, have chosen Qualcomm's chips. Bought the chip, and at the same time pay the communication standard patent fees.
Qualcomm one stone two birds, crazy harvest.
In fact, it is not a problem to pay a patent fee normally, but Qualcomm's patent fee collection method is a bit exaggerated. For example, first, a mobile phone manufacturer using Qualcomm patents must first give a license fee, after the phone is shipped, according to the price of the mobile phone. Give a 5%-10% fee. This means that even if you put a diamond on your phone, the profit of this diamond is also high on the head, very overbearing.
However, everyone pays 'high-pass tax' pain, but it is very addictive with Qualcomm products. It hurts and is happy.
In 2017, Qualcomm's chips accounted for half of the mobile phone market. The top three most popular chips belong to Qualcomm Xiaolong. The Snapdragon chip is still considered to be the most advanced mobile phone chip. Many mobile phone manufacturers' flagship mobile phones are based on Snapdragon chips. Selling point. The recent hot millet, have not been able to open a mobile phone conference because the Snapdragon chip is not in place. Imagine if there is no Snapdragon chip, can Xiaomi still go public?
Image Source: Ann Bunny Review
In the 2G-3G era, the hegemonic status of the CDMA standard allowed Qualcomm's CDMA chips to be sold, while Qualcomm's highly integrated chip technology allowed more handset manufacturers to adopt the CDMA standard.
The implementation of the standard in turn promoted the sales of more chips, forming positive feedback. Finally, it created Qualcomm's incomparable industry status, leading the United States to complete the LG standard against the wind.
2G-3G: China, the United States and Europe kill three countries
'First-class enterprises set standards, second-rate enterprises to do brands, third-rate enterprises to make products'.
Qualcomm's chips are strong, not only because of its good products, but also because the brand is bright, and because Qualcomm is at the top of the food chain, it is a standard enterprise.
The formulation of international standards is actually a process of political operation, which involves the interests of all parties. In order to achieve the ultimate consensus on the consistency of the standards in the development of standards, 3GPP and 3GPP2 organizations have been established.
In December 1998, Europe led the establishment of 3GPP, which was committed to bypassing Qualcomm's patents and transitioning from GSM to WCDMA. The United States was not to be outdone. In January 1999, Qualcomm led the establishment of 3GPP2, dedicated to the implementation of its own CDMA2000 technology.
After several trials and trials, it was found that WCDMA is better than Qualcomm's CDMA2000. So Europe quickly began to implement WCDMA as the only international telecommunications standard for 3G, hoping to lead the global 3G situation.
Recalling the fear of being dominated by GSM in Europe, the United States panicked. At this time, the United States remembered that China had a standard called TD-SCDMA, and this standard is also based on CDMA. Qualcomm still can collect patent fees. So the United States found China, 'You guys don't think too, don't you, don't you want to enter the standard in TD-SCDMA? Let's get together, support TD-SCDMA and CDMA2000 together, and don't let Europe be a big one.'
'鹬蚌相争, 渔翁得利', China has no reason to refuse. So under the Sino-US alliance, Europe gave up a big reverie.
Winning the bid for TD-SCDMA, the American standard CDMA2000 and the European standard WCDMA have become the 3G international telecommunications standard.
However, the story is not over. For the United States, this situation has never been what he wants. He also wants to go back to the wind again.
With the advent of the 21st century, Intel introduced the WiMax with OFDM (Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing), forcing the International Telecommunications Union to reopen the special conference and become the fourth 3G international telecommunications standard.
In the United States, a wave of operations immediately brought the WiMax boom. At that time, Canada, South Korea, Malaysia and so on became WiMax's experimental fields.
But these are the younger brothers of the United States. The attitude of the two major forces in China and Europe is the key.
Unfortunately, Europe is hostile. At this time, the Chinese team is very important. The game between China and the United States is like Wei Weiwu in the Three Kingdoms era, but this time China and Europe are allied, and the communication industry’s 'fire red wall' is staged. , Broken the United States 'scheduled dreams'.
China has twice become a key factor in changing the pattern of 3G international telecommunications standards. It is not because of the strength of China's technology, but because of the efforts of Huawei ZTE, China's international telecommunications market position can not be underestimated.
China’s choices are beginning to affect the global communications landscape.
3G-4G: China becomes one of the makers of the rules of the game
This choice is not difficult to do. Monopoly in any of Europe and the United States will not be a good thing for China. It is a positive solution for them to check each other.
Although this battle won, but seeing the horrors of WiMax's failure, China realized that the real status can only be played on its own, and that relying on other camps will only become a victim of the used props and power struggles.
On the other hand, in the face of the growing demand for video chat friends, the 3G network speed is obviously weak. It coincides with the maturity of 4G core orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) technology, and the transmission rate is more than ten times that of CDMA. Bypassing Qualcomm's CDMA patent, this is undoubtedly a historical opportunity for double-edged sculpture.
There is another problem. Whether the modulation mode is time division duplex (TDD) or frequency division duplex (FDD), the difference between the two is the signal transmission and reception channel used in two-way communication. Both have advantages and disadvantages. 90% of the underlying technology is the same, and which duplex mode is adopted at this time has to rise to the strategic level.
In the past, China's communication standards were followed by the two major traditional communication giants in Europe and the United States. Nowadays, Huawei ZTE has laid a solid foundation in the international communication market. Its status has already changed from the past to the present. Recalling that sentence, 'first-class enterprises set standards, second-rate enterprises do Brands, third-rate companies do products', light products and brands are difficult to protect from people, only those who make the rules of the game can truly be invincible.
Therefore, after learning that FDD was adopted in Europe, China immediately began to focus on TDD in different duplex modes (although China has more TDD related patents), and finally made TD-LTE. This is the first China-led , with a globally competitive 4G standard. With this standard, China has drawn up some operators in India, Japan, and even the United States.
In 2017, there are 2 million TD-LTE base stations, accounting for 40% of global 4G base stations, nearly 4,269 terminals supporting TD-LTE worldwide, and more than 3,255 mobile phones supporting TD-LTE, achieving a bend at the communication standard level. Road overtaking, becoming one of the makers of the global communication game rules.
In the 4G era, China's global communications status has been upgraded by the TD-LTE standard. During this period, China's mobile phone brands such as Huawei, Xiaomi, oppo, etc. developed rapidly and started to be on the same stage with global mobile phone giants Samsung and Apple. sports.
Global smartphone market share (16Q4-17Q4)
(Source: IDC official website)
In the 4G era, China, with its TD-LTE standard, has become a force to be reckoned with in the global communications landscape.
5G era: The biggest enemy is yourself
1G calls, 2G chat QQ, 3G brush microblogging, 4G watching video, then how much imagination does 5G have?
5G is not just a second movie in seconds. It also means that the machine will be more automated, what virtual reality, Internet of Things, artificial intelligence, smart city, etc., with a more powerful 5G, Will usher in a broad application space.
Everything from our side becomes intelligent, to the driverless car to free hands, and then to the magic of virtual and reality in VR and AR, 5G will penetrate into every aspect of our lives, let us live comfort And the richness has soared to an unimaginable level.
Regarding how important 5G is, Qualcomm CEO Morlenkov said, '5G is a brand new network that can support a large number of devices. The birth of 5G is as important as electricity or cars, it will generate economic and social deep influence. '
The influence of 5G can be imagined. So take the 5G standard and formulate the 5G game rules. The importance can be imagined. It can not only pass the patent fee, but also break the global communication pattern.
Although China's position in the global communications industry has been insulted, to the European and American, and now to the lead. But we also see that ZTE is lacking in core, Lenovo does not want to, internal and external troubles, difficult country, lack of leading core technology It is inevitable that it will be subject to people everywhere.
Some time ago, netizens slammed Lenovo's 5G vote and did not vote for Huawei. In addition to the pain, we should think more about the reasons behind it.
With the support of the National 03, China's software strength in communication standards is already good. In the past few years, we have been able to see ZTE's 5G application technology at major 5G exhibitions around the world. These technologies are even better than those of the US. More advanced. However, ZTE's 5G application technology has developed even better. Once it is broken by the US, it will be difficult.
The battle for the 5G standard has just begun. Under the dark tide, countries compete in the comprehensive strengths of technical strength, cohesiveness, and discourse power. So we see that the state has established a large fund to implement talent cultivation and introduction programs.
However, under the world of this story king and PPT, how much money can really be implemented? Faced with the flamboyant world of materialistic desires, how many people are willing to study technology in a down-to-earth manner? We don’t know.
The ZTE incident is a warning given by the United States. It beats the myths of our great powers. From the ridiculous game of virtual economy to the flowering of the drums, to the social atmosphere of the heart and mind, and when we look back, we find that we are all on the rise of the Chinese nation. Crossroads with a short-lived '.
How the future is, not just the choice of the country, but also the choice of everyone.
The rise and fall, everyone is responsible.