Episode network report (text / Li Ying) In the early morning, the domestic AI chip unicorn - Shen Jian Technology announced that it was the originator of FPGA, the acquisition of Xilinx, the United States, the specific transaction amount is unknown. Huge response, Xilinx exclusive to the micro-network, Xilinx's strategy to evolve from FPGA devices to adaptive computing acceleration platform providers is to accelerate the deployment of FPGA acceleration technology from cloud-to-end applications. The technology-optimized neural network pruning technology runs on Xilinx FPGA devices to achieve breakthrough performance and industry-best energy efficiency. This is the new Xilinx CEO's promotion of machine learning development after the ACAP March conference. Capacity, a major step in advancing strategic development.
Acquisition of waterways?
In fact, the two have had years of friendship.
Founded on March 3, 2016, Shen Jian was founded by Wang Yu, Han Song, Yao Wei, and Shan Yu from the background of Tsinghua Electronics. It focuses on the realization of AI landing with FPGA. Due to its profound AI technology advantages and industrial advantages, The market is popular.
Since its inception, Shenjian Technology has been developing AI solutions based on Xilinx FPGA platform. It has launched products for drones, security, and data centers. It is known for its neural network pruning, deep compression technology, and system-level optimization. Since then, the self-developed AI chip 'Tingtao' and 'Viewing Sea' have been launched.
It should be noted that since Actel, Altera was acquired by Microsemi and Intel, Xilinx has occupied the leading position in the FPGA industry. And Shenjian adopts Xilinx high-performance FPGA platform and integrates original deep learning technology to accumulate. The deep AI technology advantage and industrial advantage have been favored in the market.
In the financing process of the past two years, Shenjian Technology completed the Angel Wheel in April 2016. The investor is Gaochun Capital, Jinshajiang Venture Capital. In May 2017, the A round was completed, and the financing amount was tens of millions of US dollars. The party includes Xilinx, MediaTek, Tsinghua Holdings, Fanghe Capital, the original investor Jinshajiang Venture Capital, Gaochun Capital and Investment. In October 2017, Shenjian Technology announced a $40 million A+ round of financing, of which Ant Gold Serve with Samsung Venture Capital, China Merchants Venture Capital and Huachuang Capital.
It can be seen that since 2017, Xilinx has become a major investor in Shenjian Technology together with other well-known investment institutions around the world.
The acquisition seems to be a big joy. Xilinx said that the FPGA is the most suitable product for innovation and entrepreneurship. The deep learning program of Shenjian Technology has been developed on the Xilinx platform. In the past two years, Xilinx has not only witnessed It has also been accompanied by the growth of this company, including last year's investment, introducing end customers to help them grow. Nowadays, acquisitions can be said to be a matter of course, and the two sides are definitely more effective than synergy.
Everything for cloud + end AI?
What kind of chemical reaction will occur after the two sides combine? What changes will the future layout change?
Xilinx FPGAs are mainly used in traditional fields such as communication, industry, aviation, and defense. However, with the emergence of emerging technologies such as AI, cloud computing, 5G, and autopilot, the application range of FPGAs is expanding. FPGA-based AI machines Learning technology can cover almost all mainstream applications including 5G, automotive, industrial, medical, consumer electronics, data centers, etc.
Similar to CPU and GPU, FPGA chip can provide computing power for training and reasoning of deep learning algorithms. Especially in reasoning applications, FPGA has advantages in power consumption and performance, and becomes one of the core technologies of AI application. See, FPGA has now entered the ranks of AI mainstream processors, from end to edge to cloud, FPGA with rapid power performance ratio and adaptive capabilities, will be rapidly iterative development.
In terms of AI cloud computing, FPGAs will have flexibility, lower power consumption, and higher ROI in terms of data center acceleration. Therefore, most data centers will adopt FPGA+CPU+GPU mixed mode. Side, FPGA has the advantages of flexibility, low power consumption, and has the advantage of multiplexing. It can bring security, confidentiality and multi-sensor fusion technology with only one chip. In the process of continuous improvement and continuous optimization of FPGA, FPGA The flexibility advantage will always be welcomed.
At the cloud computing level, Xilinx's partners are not only foreign Amazon's cloud service leader Amazon AWS, but also domestic Ali, Baidu, Tencent, and Huawei. On the AI end side, Xilinx FPGA chips are in the cloud. Automated driving, embedded vision and industrial Internet of Things are already accelerating penetration.
Especially at the level of autonomous driving, both Xilinx and Shenjian Technology have added horsepower. Xilinx is the second largest ADAS semiconductor supplier, between the fiscal year 2013 and the 2017 fiscal year, Xilinx vehicles The average annual growth rate of revenue in the field reached 60%. It is working with several major automakers to develop an autopilot program. On June 26, Shenjian Technology announced the launch of DPHiAuto, an embedded AI computing platform based on FPGA. Joined the autopilot track. It is reported that it has signed cooperation with well-known car manufacturers and first-tier suppliers in Japan, North America, Europe and China.
In the AI field, Xilinx and Shenjian will work together to leverage technology, channel, platform and landing advantages to advance FPGA deployment of machine learning from cloud-to-end applications. Will a startling AI opponent emerge? Will there be similar actions for the target NVIDIA or Intel?
In any case, the series of actions after the new CEO of Xilinx took office showed that Xilinx wants to play the next big game!
AI chip competition into the watershed?
Shen Jian Technology, Cambrian, Horizon as a representative player of three domestic AI chips, is the top companies in this round of AI chip entrepreneurial wave, their every move is eye-catching.
Nowadays, Shenjian Technology has turned around perfectly. For other startups, it is also self-aware. The AI chip has always faced difficulties in landing, and it is difficult to find application scenarios. Now one of the three representative players is the acquisition of Shenjian Technology. The case may indicate that the AI chip market is about to enter a new wave of integration.
The AI chip battle will enter a new watershed, the capital bubble is coming, and many have been on the verge of bankruptcy. In the future, the AI chip track will be more realistic.
Yao Jian, co-founder and CEO of Shenjian Technology, said that today's AI chip design has crossed the stage of independent chip design and application, and entered the stage of software and hardware coordination. Only in this way can the chip performance be better. In order to allow customers to adapt the chip to the application scenario. However, the difficulty for AI chip companies is that the X86 instruction set is a mature instruction set 30 or 40 years ago, and there are countless developers developing processors and applications for it. For AI chips, there won't be too many developers to develop operating systems, processors and upper-level software environments for chips. For AI chip companies, in addition to algorithms, performance and applications, We must constantly strive to build relevant ecology.
The final chip competition is not performance, but service. 'NVIDIA products are not much better than others from the perspective of cost performance. But why in the server field, customers are willing to endure five or six times more expensive than others, and also use NVIDIA What's the product? This is because in the GPU and vertical industries, NVIDIA can also provide vertical industry services. ' Yao Yao's words are simple and profound.
Therefore, players gathered on the AI chip track, future competition is not just performance, how to combine chips and application scenarios, how to build an ecosystem, how to provide services from chip to board to software application layer, future competition The road is still long. (Proofreading / 叨叨)
2. The results are bright! Shanghai IC design industry has double-digit growth for four consecutive years, equipment and equipment industry profits increased by 95.7%
Set micro-network news (text / Xiaobei) Recently, the Shanghai IC Industry Association released the "White Paper on Shanghai IC Industry in 2018". The white paper shows that the sales volume of Shanghai IC industry in 2017 reached 118.062 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 12.2%. This is the second consecutive year that Shanghai's IC industry sales scale has achieved double-digit growth since 2014.
Shanghai IC Industry Association believes that the structure of Shanghai IC industry chain has become more advanced and reasonable in recent years.
The dominant position in the design industry is highlighted, and the profit of the equipment and materials industry has increased by 95.7%.
Shanghai's current positioning of IC is the core of IC design. According to data released by Shanghai Economic and Information Commission, since 2011, Shanghai IC design industry's revenue has increased year by year, and in 2016 exceeded the packaging and testing industry for the first time. Nowadays, the Shanghai IC industry has shifted from the former packaging and testing industry to the industrial structure dominated by the design industry and the chip manufacturing industry. In 2017, the dominant position of the industrial chain of the Shanghai IC design industry is more obvious. The design industry accounts for the industrial chain. The proportion is as high as 37.1%, and this ratio was 23.7% in 2011.
According to the white paper, the total profit of the Shanghai IC industry in 2017 was approximately 8.79 billion yuan, an increase of 18% over the 7.746 billion yuan in 2016. Among them, the equipment and materials industry saw the largest increase, reaching 95.7%. It is reported that Pudong enterprises Zhongwei semiconductor equipment (Shanghai ) Ltd., Shanghai Microelectronics Equipment (Group) Co., Ltd., Shengmei Semiconductor Equipment (Shanghai) Co., Ltd. and Shanghai Keystone Semiconductor Co., Ltd. occupy the top four. In addition, the equipment industry achieved 8.268 billion yuan in 2017. Sales revenue increased by 111.9% year-on-year.
According to the white paper, Shanghai equipment and materials manufacturing industry has already stepped out of the development stage of the initial stage, and successfully entered the new stage of bilateral development of “products enter the market, the market leads the enterprise; R&D drives innovation, innovation promotes development”.
In order to promote the development of equipment materials manufacturing industry, Shanghai established a special fund in 2017 - IC Equipment Materials Fund. The total size of the fund is not less than 10 billion yuan, the first phase is 5 billion yuan, by the National Fund, the Port Management Committee The meeting, Guosheng Group, Nanjing Bank, Shanghai Wanye Enterprise and other units jointly invested, is part of Shanghai's 50 billion yuan integrated circuit industry fund, led by the Lingang Management Committee.
Lingang District is an important bearing place for integrated circuit equipment materials manufacturing industry. Its development strategy is 'fund + base'.
Today, Lingang is striving to make Shanghai Lingang IC and Intelligent Equipment Industry Demonstration Park an industrial agglomeration area. Xinsheng Semiconductor, Qiai Information Technology, Kai Shitong and other projects have successively settled in Lingang. The industrial cluster effect has gradually formed. It is reported that The next step of Lingang District is to cultivate a number of equipment and materials enterprises with global influence in key segments, and drive the overall jump of China's IC industry chain.
Zhangjiang integrated circuit industry concentration increased
According to the white paper, as of 2017, the number of ICs in Pudong is 279, with more than 64,700 employees, accounting for half of the city's total. Among them, Zhangjiang Hi-Tech Park has seen a significant growth in the industry, with the number of units increasing to 197, and the number of employees has increased to over 4.59 million people, the concentration of the integrated circuit industry has once again increased.
The core park of Zhangjiang Demonstration Zone is the Silicon Valley of Shanghai IC industry. It has the most complete and complete industrial chain layout of domestic ICs. Today, chip design industry and equipment materials industry are the highlights of IC industry development in the core park of Zhangjiang Demonstration Zone. The growth in 2017 is above 20%.
In 2018, Zhangjiang IC industry continued to upgrade. Now, with the accelerated construction of key projects of Science City integrated circuits such as Huali Microelectronics' 12-inch advanced production line, the energy level of Zhangjiang IC industry is continuously improving, further consolidating Shanghai's integrated circuits. In addition, the National Integrated Circuit Innovation Center and the National Intelligent Sensor Innovation Center were officially launched in Shanghai on the 3rd of this month. Among them, the National IC Innovation Center will be located at the Zhangjiang Campus of Fudan University, and will attract the leading domestic ICs in the future. Enterprises, together form the joint force of China's integrated circuit research and development. (Proofreading / Yuechuan)
3. Hangzhou introduced 14 special policies for the integrated circuit industry: R&D subsidies up to 10 million yuan
Set micro-network news (text / Xiaobei) On July 17, "Hangzhou City further encourages the integrated development of the integrated circuit industry's special policy" (hereinafter referred to as "special policy") officially released, clear annual arrangements for special funds to support Hangzhou IC Industrial development, focusing on encouraging integrated circuit design companies and integrated circuit manufacturing companies to become stronger and stronger, the policy will be implemented on August 12.
Hangzhou is one of the seven design bases of the national integrated circuit industry. According to the Zhejiang Semiconductor Industry Association report, 99% of the design enterprises in the province are located in the Hangzhou Bay area represented by Hangzhou, Shaoxing, Ningbo, and Jiaxing, of which more than 85% Design companies and more than 95% of the design business income is concentrated in Hangzhou. Although Hangzhou has the first-mover advantage of developing integrated circuit industry, it has never set up special funds for integrated circuit industry in the past 10 years from 2008 to 2017, resulting in weak enterprise investment. It is also difficult to introduce large-scale integrated circuit manufacturing enterprises, and the gap between Shanghai and Beijing, Beijing, Shenzhen and other cities has gradually widened.
Article 14 of the “Special Policy” focuses on supporting 14 policies in six major areas, including the scope of funding, funding priorities and safeguard measures. It will focus on supporting R&D investment, IP (Intellectual Property) purchase, and streaming. Manufacturing, new or technological transformation projects, large-scale local application of independent chips (modules) and new professional technical service platforms. The following are the details of the "Special Policy": First, focus on supporting IC enterprise technology innovation, application Innovation, entrepreneurship chain integration and other projects, focusing on cultivating a number of well-known integrated circuit leading enterprises at home and abroad, supporting a number of 'specialized, sophisticated, special, new' small and medium-sized integrated circuit enterprises.
Second, the annual arrangement of special funds at all levels to support the development of the integrated circuit industry.
Third, investing more than 3 million yuan (inclusive) in the R&D of the integrated circuit industry, giving 20% of its actual R&D investment, up to a maximum of 10 million yuan.
Fourth, for the purchase of IP (referred to as IP provider or Foundry IP module) to carry out high-end chips, advanced or characteristic process research and development of integrated circuit companies, give them 30% of the direct cost of purchasing IP, up to a maximum of 2 million yuan of subsidies. Use, the integrated circuit enterprise that shares the IP design tool software or test analysis system of the third-party IC design platform of this city, and gives 40% of its actual investment, and the subsidy of up to 1 million yuan. V. The IC company that distributes the film gives 50% of the cost of mask production of the product or 30% of the cost of the first round of film, and the subsidy of up to 3 million yuan.
6. For the construction or technological transformation projects of integrated circuit enterprises with an investment scale of more than 50 million yuan (inclusive), refer to the Notice of the General Office of the People's Government of Hangzhou on Implementing a Better and Faster Development of Several Fiscal and Tax Policies for Promoting the Real Economy (Hang Zheng) The letter of the letter (2017) No. 102), giving 15% of its actual investment (including equipment and software investment), and the subsidy of a single enterprise up to a maximum of 35 million yuan.
7. The local integrated circuit design enterprise develops and independently applies the independent chip or module for local application for the first time, and the scale application reaches 5 million yuan or more. For the application party, 30% of the actual investment is given in a major special mode, and the maximum is not more than A subsidy of 3 million yuan.
8. For the newly-built professional technology or comprehensive technical service platform, give 30% of the project equipment self-raised investment, up to a maximum of 5 million yuan; for the public service platform (institution), give it 10% of the income of the small and medium-sized enterprises , the maximum subsidy of not more than 1 million yuan.
9. Encourage integrated circuit enterprises to carry out mergers and acquisitions through mergers, acquisitions, joint ventures, and shareholdings. The market is promising, the industrial upgrading is strong, and the local economic development is particularly supportive of major industrial projects. ' Ways to give comprehensive support policies.
X. Establishing a state-owned Hangzhou Integrated Circuit Industry Investment Company, entrusting professional institutions to operate, and entering the IC industry capital field by means of equity investment. Encourage all kinds of venture capital, equity investment funds, and Xinbao Fund to support the integrated circuit industry project of our city. Guide and encourage enterprises to actively participate in the declaration of major national special projects and funds.
11. Encourage financial institutions such as banks to grant credit concessions to integrated circuit enterprises, set up special loans for integrated circuits and financial products designed for the integrated circuit industry. Encourage government financing guarantee institutions to provide loan guarantees for integrated circuit small and medium-sized enterprises, and give guarantee institutions a certain Risk compensation.
12. Optimize the taxation process and speed up the tax rebate. In accordance with the spirit of the “Notice of the Ministry of Finance, the State Administration of Taxation, the Development and Reform Commission, and the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology on Further Encouraging the Development of Enterprise Income Tax Policies for the IC Industry”, timely fulfilling tax incentives and Tax exemption policy.
Thirteen, in the introduction of talents and teams, land resources and various types of new energy supply, enterprise infrastructure and environmental construction, etc., give integrated circuit enterprises key protection, provide convenient services, form policy synergies, and promote industrial development.
4. The subsidies and incentive funds involved in this policy shall be borne by the municipal finance and the relevant districts, and the county (city) finances shall each bear 50%.
After the press conference of "Special Policy" of Qingshan Lake Science and Technology City and Hangzhou ICs, the site of the Zhejiang Micro-Nano Technology R&D and Open Platform was also signed. The platform was developed by China Light and Power Haikang Group, National Intelligent Sensor Innovation Center. It is jointly built with the Qingshan Lake Science and Technology City Management Committee. The goal is to develop a 12-inch high-end chip technology as the core, covering the open platform of general chip design and testing services.
In the planning of the integrated circuit industry, Qingshan Lake Science and Technology City is an important space bearing place and an important industrial gathering area in the future.
There are numerous software industrial parks in Hangzhou, such as the Eastern Software Park, the Northern Software Park, the High-tech Software Park, the Paradise Software Park and many other software industry parks, the Oriental E-commerce Industrial Park, the West Lake E-Commerce Industrial Park, etc. At the meeting on July 4th, "Special Policy to Further Encourage the Development of the Integrated Circuit Industry", Mayor Xu Liyi emphasized: 'Leverage Hangzhou's existing advantages in the IC design industry and actively promote design and manufacturing. Further integration, focusing on key areas such as Qingshan Lake Science and Technology City, introducing and cultivating a number of leading enterprises with core competitiveness, further strengthening the industrial agglomeration effect, and promoting the city's digital economy to achieve greater breakthroughs in deep technology and underlying technological innovation, let Hangzhou The big tree of the digital economy is deep and leafy.
Today, the IC strength of Qingshanhu Science and Technology City continues to increase. For example, the project of “Dip Liquid System Product Development and Capacity Building” in the National 02 Science and Technology Major (Maximum Scale Integrated Circuit Manufacturing Technology and Complete Process) signed on August 3rd. Entered Qingshan Lake Science and Technology City. (Proofreading / 叨叨)
4. Huawei Kirin 710 Secret: The first 12nm process GPU performance increased 1.3 times
On July 18th, Huawei held a new product launch conference at the Shenzhen Universiade Stadium, releasing two new models, nova 3, nova 3i, which have front and rear four cameras. The processors are equipped with the flagship unicorn 970, the new mainstream unicorn 710. The official did not say it, but it is clear that the Kirin 710 has a strong meaning for the high-end Tonglong 710. It will also be Huawei, the main platform for the future mainstream models of the thousand yuan, and the Kirin 659 can finally rest.
In terms of energy efficiency, Kirin 710 is equipped with four A73, four A53 CPU cores, designed with Big.Little hybrid architecture, the highest frequency is 2.2GHz, 1.7GHz, compared with unicorn 659 single core performance increased by 75%, multi-core performance improvement 68 % .
At the same time, the integration of Mali-G51 GPU, can achieve 130% performance improvement, 100% energy efficiency improvement, effectively improve the phone fever, Caton and other issues, if not unexpectedly will also support GPU Turbo.
It also supports Google ARCore, HUAWEI AR dual augmented reality engine, which can better support various AR functions.
In terms of process technology, Kirin 710 is Huawei's first TSMC 12nm chip, while using the latest 6T Turbo technology, it can improve performance by more than 10% compared with the same process products.
Kirin 710 has an independent post-processing unit, which improves overall camera performance by 30%, supports AI scene recognition, recognizes more than 20 scenes, and automatically sets optimal parameters, especially for portraits, night scenes, and sports scenes.
It also supports HDR Sensor, which optimizes the skin tone effect at low color temperature and mixed color temperature. It can also take good-looking portrait photos in a variety of complex lighting environments, and improve the dark shooting strategy for night scenes to ensure clear and transparent. Imaging texture.
For fast motion scenes that are easy to blur, Kirin 710 supports static, slow, medium, and fast four-speed speed monitoring, intelligently adjusts shutter dynamics, and combines AI motion scene detection to enhance shooting.
Network communication is Huawei's strength. The Kirin 710 supports the LTE Cat.12/13 standard. The downlink peak rate is 600Mbps and the uplink peak rate is 150Mbps, which is 100% and 50% higher than the previous generation. It is also the second in the industry after the Kirin 970. Support dual-card dual 4G dual VoLTE mobile phone chip.
At the same time, Kirin 710 is optimized for complex communication scenarios, effectively improving the quality of communication connections in areas with weak signal environments such as high-speed rail.
In terms of safety performance, Kirin 710 also made breakthroughs. It introduced TEE technology to support face recognition, and included face feature extraction, feature comparison, module management and other indicators into the security zone protection to achieve full-channel face security.
It also continued the Kirin 970 inSE security mechanism, obtained financial-level security certification, and effectively protected mobile payment accounts.
5. The total investment is 2.5 billion yuan! Zhejiang Jinhua introduces MEMS chip project
Recently, Zhejiang Jinhua Jinpan Development Zone and Xi'an Jiaotong University Nano-college, Anhui Lanze Investment Co., Ltd. signed a photonics and MEMS chip project signing ceremony. What is a MEMS chip? For a simple example, the human body has an ear, nose and mouth, commonly known as 'five features ', Help the human body to perceive the world by smelling, watching, listening, etc. If it is an unmanned car or a smart appliance at home, how do you perceive whether there is a vehicle in front or the surrounding environment changes? The answer is the MEMS chip. It is like the 'five features' of intelligent systems. MEMS sensors are the core components of the sensing layer that must be possessed by smart terminals, Internet of Things, smart home appliances, smart driving vehicles and artificial intelligence industries, acting as the 'five features' of intelligent systems. Advanced sensing layer, intelligent devices can not achieve true intelligence. At present, optical integrated chips, optoelectronic hybrid integrated chip-based optical devices and advanced micro-nano sensors based on MEMS technology have become hotspots in the world's industrial development. The total investment of the project signed on the same day will be 2.5 billion yuan, which will also drive the investment in the industrial chain to 2.5 billion yuan, totaling 5 billion yuan. Yuan. This project will be carried out in three phases. After the completion of the first phase, it will be the world's first 8-inch optoelectronic and MEMS chip integrated wafer production line with independent intellectual property rights. The products will replace imports, with an annual output value of more than 500 million yuan. The RMB also promoted the downstream industry of not less than 5 billion yuan. The project of such significance is naturally highly valued by Panan. On the day of signing, both parties have arranged the main responsible person to present: Fu Xianming, secretary of the Pan’an County Party Committee, County Vice Chairman of the CPPCC, Chen Ping, Party Secretary of Jinpan Development Zone, Zhao Libo, Director of Mechanical Department of Xi'an Jiaotong University, Shi Weibing, Chairman of Anhui Lanze Investment Co., Ltd., Assistant Director of the Institute of Nanoscience, Xi'an Jiaotong University, etc. Fu Xianming pointed out that Pan'an County Committee and County Government, Jinpan Development Zone shall provide the strongest support for project construction, the best service, promote the project to start early, put into production early, achieve early results, achieve cooperation and win-win, and common development. Jinpan Development Zone is located in Jinhua The urban area was established in 1995 with a planned area of 3.8 square kilometers. As of last year, there were more than 1,000 industrial and commercial enterprises in the region, and 6 enterprises with an output value of more than 100 million yuan. There are 9 enterprises with 10 million enterprises, including 3 enterprises with tax revenues over 50 million yuan and 8 national high-tech enterprises. The accumulated industrial sales value is 27.9 billion yuan, and taxes and other non-tax revenues are 3.5 billion yuan. The tax reached 230,000 yuan, walking in the forefront of the province. CSIA