Not long ago, Huawei released the Kirin 710 at the nova3 conference. The progress of the Kirin series in the 900 series has been obvious, but it has always been tepid on the mid-range processor. There is no grand introduction, but this new series of Kirin processors undoubtedly shows that Huawei will be working on the midrange processor. As the traditional overlord of the mid-range processor market, Qualcomm also launched a new Snapdragon this year. 7 series, become the big killer in the new generation of mid-end market. The competition for mobile phone processors has officially spread from the flagship to the mid-range battlefield.
Let us first look at the product strength of the two 710.
The most important factor in determining the performance of a processor is the process, architecture, etc. The Snapdragon 710 uses the same 10 nanometer process as the 845, and the third generation Kryo CPU architecture, including two large cores of the A75 architecture (2.2 GHz). ) +6 A55 small core (1.7GHz) design, although not as strong as 845, but in actual use scenarios, the two large cores of the Xiaolong 710 are sufficient for most tasks, and the power consumption is good. Performance. In memory, flash specifications, fast charge, Wifi and other aspects, the Snapdragon 710 and 845 support capabilities are the same.
Not only Qualcomm, but also has invested a lot of energy in the flagship processor of Kirin, this year also began to force the mid-end market. The biggest highlight of the Kirin 710 is the use of 12nm process on the mid-range processor, and equipped with 4 A73 big core + 4 A53 small cores. The GPU uses the Mali-G51, which uses the Bifrost architecture to support the current Vulkan graphics API, and the Quad vectorization technology supported by the Bifrost architecture supports up to four threads of execution, shared control logic, and usage rates approaching 100%. From the book data, the Kirin 710 changed its past performance in the Kirin midrange processor.
In addition, compared with the flagship Soc, the mid-range processor does not have too much difference in performance, and in some key functions, the mid-range processor is not behind. For example, on the Snapdragon 710, it is equipped. The Hexagon 685 DSP of the same model of the Snapdragon 845, through the integration of the multi-core artificial intelligence engine AI Engine, Hexagon DSP and the Adreno visual processing subsystem and the Kryo CPU work together to achieve the same AI performance as the 800 series. Kirin 710 will also be equipped with Huawei's very scary GPU Turbo technology. When these features, which were once available on the flagship machine, were released to the midrange processor, the status of the midrange processor was greatly improved.
On the other hand, who doesn't like things that are good and cheap?
From the data point of view, according to the Counterpoint report, in the first half of 2018, the average unit price of smartphones in the Chinese market increased from 209 US dollars to 267 US dollars, and the growth rate exceeded 20%. From the price point, '700 US dollars or more' and ' The 400-499 US dollar's growth in these two price segments is particularly evident. The main shipments above $700 are for the iPhone series. In the Android phone, the main shipments are in the very typical mid-end flagship mobile phone price of 400-499 US dollars. This gives the mid-range processor a huge market space.
For mobile phone manufacturers, these mid-range Socs have lower costs and higher profits. In fact, these Soc performances have become stronger and stronger. Basically, their performance, especially CPU performance, is getting closer to the previous generation of the 8 Series flagship. Soc. For example, there is a less rigorous statement: The actual experience of the Xiaolong 625 is equivalent to the previous generation of the Xiaolong 801, and the Xiaolong 660 is equivalent to the previous generation of the Xiaolong 820. The experience of the Xiaolong 710 is close to that of the Xiaolong 835.
Therefore, the reasons for manufacturers to favor mid-range Soc are also sufficient, lower cost can bring higher profits, mid-range Soc itself has more and more excellent product power, and today's 710 series does not have to worry about performance. So for mobile phones For manufacturers and chip manufacturers, midrange processors will have better market performance.
Here, one more thing to say is that chip makers are actually more open to the mid-range processor. For example, the 6 series that Qualcomm promotes every year, especially the Snapdragon 630/660 launched last year, both in word of mouth and market performance. All of them became the 'last straw' of Qualcomm. Both of these chips use a 14nm process, and the designed pins of the two platforms are software compatible. This is a greater choice for mobile phone manufacturers when they are used. More importantly, for chip manufacturers. , cost reduction, higher profits, why not.
The market is forced
The reason why the midrange processor is so sought after, in addition to performance and cost, there is a link that even the chip manufacturers did not expect: the rapid development of mobile games.
Yesterday was the glory of the king. Today, it has become a stimulating battlefield. In the face of hundreds of millions of mobile game parties and game makers who are engaged in the game, no one can guarantee that there will be another game tomorrow. Banknote makers printing money (Tencent Mobile Games revenues of approximately 62.8 billion in 2017) are research and development, and on the other hand are more than 700 million mobile game users, facing a big cake in the 100 billion-level market, for mobile phone manufacturers. , chip makers, there is no second choice at all.
Consumer awareness
For the consumer awareness of these mid-range Socs, it must be combined with the mobile terminal equipped with these Soc.
Since the Snapdragon 625, this processor, known as the 'generational god U', has balanced the performance and power consumption, making consumers recognize the further mid-range Soc. Especially the R9s of the shipping OPPO of the year, vivo X9 has adopted this processor, which greatly improved the user's acceptance of the mid-range processor. Even Qualcomm did not expect that such a chip can be used from 2016 until 2018, which is very touching.
It is also from this beginning that Qualcomm began to dominate the mid-end chip market, and let consumers gradually change the perception of the mid-end chip.
Later, the Snapdragon 660/660AIE gained a higher recognition from the CPU of the flagship Snapdragon 835. There is no longer any doubt about the performance of the 660. Since the OPPO R11 started the Snapdragon 660, the X20 of the Vivo , Nut Pro2 and so on have all started using Snapdragon 660. These mobile phones have also become the only explosions of the time, behind this is the consumer awareness and recognition of these mid-range Soc is rising. Today, Qualcomm's latest The mid-range Soc - Xiaolong 710 is even called "quasi-flagship" Soc by many manufacturers, and consumers will become more and more sure about this latest mid-range Soc.
to sum up:
Compared with the collection of 'ten thousand pets' in one, the flagship processor with its own aura is released. Although the mid-range processor is low-key, it also has an advantage in shipments, and it is responsible for improving the profit of chip manufacturers and mobile phone manufacturers. Important tasks. And as the performance of midrange processors has become stronger and stronger, with more and more flagship Soc features, product power is getting better and better, under this premise, consumer awareness and recognition It will also continue to rise. Of course, better quality and acceptable performance, for manufacturers, the mid-range processor reflects the high cost performance is naturally more popular.
I remember many years ago, smartphones just became popular. In the crazy development stage of Android Eco, the processors at that time were also in a crazy competition. The competition project was called 'nuclear war.' Then when it reached a certain stage, someone threw it. 'Performance excess', that the performance of mobile phones has developed faster than the pace of software. Nowadays, the emergence of mobile games has given such a powerful counterattack: the performance will not be excessive. In the future, when the mobile phone With the development of AI and even AR, the requirements for mobile phone performance are becoming more and more important. The mid-range processor will further erode the low-end machine market (the low-end machine is down in other parts), especially like Huawei. Processors, manufacturers that can build terminals, even if they are in the middle of the Huawei/Glory all-in-one thousand-dollar machine, it is not impossible.
After all, there is technology that can do whatever it wants.