TailorInsight, the fintech market research organization, recently released a research report ‘Intel, Nvidia and WIMI Hologram Cloud Are Building Ecological Advantages in High-end Chips’. The new infrastructure brings new opportunities for the development of the widely concerned IC industry chain. In an interview with reporters, a number of experts, scholars, and company executives said that compared with traditional chips, the new generation of high-end chips as new infrastructure computing engines, such as 5G, AI, and intelligent computing, belong to a new track and need to build a new ecosystem. Therefore, seizing the opportunities of the new infrastructure market represented by 5G will boost the innovation and development of the integrated circuit industry and make up for the ecological shortcomings of domestic high-end chips for a long time.
High-end chips, especially processor chips, are recognized as the jewel in the crown of integrated circuits. Among them, the most familiar processors are the central processing unit (CPU) commonly known as “brain chip”, and the graphics processing unit (GPU) known as “graphics chip”, as well as the digital signal processor chip (DSP) used in communication, voice, image processing, and other fields.
Industry insiders point out that in the past 30 years, people have experienced changes in information technology such as digitalization, the Internet, and mobile Internet. The key driver behind it is the rapid progress of computing technology represented by processors. The innovative capabilities of processors reflect, to some extent, a country’s ability to control the new generation of information technology. Therefore, it is of great urgency to develop domestic high-end chips, especially new-generation processors such as CPU, DSP, GPU, and FPGA chips. At present, the core technology of global high-end chips is basically in the hands of several giants, while the core technology of domestic high-end chips is still in the stage of catching up. This situation needs to be changed urgently.
Intel recently released Comet Lake-U, which is based on the 14nm process, at a time when many of these processors are coming to market. Thus, the shortage of capacity may affect the normal sales and shipment of these notebooks, as well as more notebook manufacturers who plan to launch notebooks which use Comet Lake-U processors. A number of manufacturers have postponed the release and sale of new notebooks to 2020, and this is a situation that could have been avoided if Intel had ramped up the production of low-end processors.
GPU giant Nvidia unveiled its GeForce RTX 30 series, a new generation of AI gaming chip, on Tuesday. These chips use Micron Technology’s new storage design technology and use Samsung’s 8-nanometer chip production process. Nvidia’s game AI chip uses a variety of techniques to improve graphics performance, such as using an artificial intelligence processor to predict how the light will move in a scene, rather than manually calculating each light. Compared to the previous generation of chips, the performance of the RTX 30 series has been doubled, and the energy efficiency ratio has been increased by 1.9-times. Nvidia said that the three chips in the series will be available from September to October, respectively.
WIMI Hologram Cloud recently announced the establishment of a wholly-owned subsidiary, Lixin Technology Co., Ltd. (“Lixin Technology”), to accelerate the research and development, sales, and related holographic vision technical services of the holographic vision intelligent robots. This company’s initial registered capital of 200 million yuan (CNY), and it will focus on a new upstream business in the domestic smart product market, as well as the R&D and sales of semiconductor chips, to further enhance the company’s competitiveness.
As a fabless semiconductor company, Lixin Technology will become the latest competitor in China’s semiconductor industry. Moreover, China’s homegrown semiconductor industry is already large and well-funded. Made in China 2025 is a strategic plan released in 2015 to promote the development of Chinese technology manufacturers in the global market. As China continues to influence the global semiconductor industry, one of the main goals of Made in China 2025 is to achieve self-sufficiency. According to a report released by Morgan Stanley on June 16, 2020, the sales of chips designed in China are expected to grow from $18 billion in 2019 to $48 billion in 2025. Meanwhile, China’s semiconductor companies will meet 40 percent of domestic demand by 2025.
Lixin Technology will be based in Hainan province and enjoy tax incentives and government support in the fast-developing semiconductor industry, industrial and automation technologies, the applications of intelligent vision and holographic vision, and many other aspects. WIMI hopes its new subsidiary will bring integrated circuit design firms with a wide range of proprietary technology to help develop the fabless semiconductor business. The investment and establishment of Lixin Technology are in line with the company’s requirements for optimizing supply chain management, reducing costs, and enhancing competitiveness. Besides, it also keeps in accordance with the company’s requirements for continuous enhancements of innovation, design, and technical capabilities. In fact, except most of the technology giants are optimistic about the domestic chip market, WIMI has also started its cloud AI visual chip independent R&D project two years ago.
