Reborn in 2011, 985 missing from two copies

The higher the end of the chip, the more difficult it is to research and develop.

But it is much easier to use low-end chips in thousand-yuan phones.

Wang Yi continued, "The same is true for baseband chips, with two versions. One is the 28-nanometer Wing Loong 3000, and the other is the 40-nanometer Wing Loong 2800. The 40-nanometer Wing Loong 2800 will be taped out in the second half of the year and will be used in thousand-yuan phones. The 28-nanometer Wing Loong 3000 will be used in next year's flagship phones!"

"no problem!"

Williams had no comment.

Try a simple one first to accumulate experience in advance, and then do a difficult one. Naturally, your success rate will greatly increase.

What's more, after the 40nm trial production in the second half of the year, it will be even easier to tape out the wafers in our own wafer fab.

In fact, many of Qualcomm's mid- and low-end processors are castrated or modified from old processors, and it is impossible to develop all of them from scratch.

The biggest advantage of doing this is that R&D costs are greatly reduced.

The design cost of a 7-nanometer mobile phone chip alone is 20 billion RMB, not counting other expenses!

The design cost of a 3-nanometer mobile phone chip is as high as 40 billion yuan!

It is precisely because of such high costs that there are very few companies that can develop high-end mobile phone chips.

Even if the design cost of a 28-nanometer mobile phone chip is lower, it still costs 3 million yuan.

As for the 40-nanometer mobile phone chip, the design cost is lower, but it still costs 2 million yuan.

Xingyi Semiconductor launches so many mobile phone chips a year, including Kunpeng 500, 700, 900, baseband Wing Loong 2800 and Wing Loong 3000, a total of five models!

If we develop it all from scratch, not only will it be time-consuming and laborious, the R&D cost alone will exceed 10 billion. The subsequent wafer production costs, production line costs, etc. are also not small amounts.

If the Kunpeng 700 is castrated, modified, and upgraded to produce Kunpeng 500 and 900, the R&D cost will be much lower.

Adding the baseband R&D costs, it is estimated that 500 million yuan can be enough to complete the whole process, saving at least half.

Take the bomber for example. Instead of researching many new models and failing to perfect each one, it is better to modify Liu Ye crazily!

Ten years later, Liu Ye has almost used up all 26 letters, and no one knows how powerful he is.

Wang Yi’s strategy is to make some magic changes!

In this way, the Kunpeng 500 chip + Wing Loong 2800 baseband can be mass-produced by the end of the year and used in next year's thousand-yuan mobile phones.

In this way, the launch time of the thousand-yuan phone cannot be put off until the middle of next year. On the contrary, it has to be released at the beginning of next year!

Therefore, the research and development of thousand-yuan phones must be accelerated across the board.

Wang Yi had some calculations in his mind.

In 2012, the flagship Xphone 1 Pro used the 40nm quad-core processor NVIDIA Tegra 3.

In 2013, there was no problem at all for a thousand-yuan phone to use the 40-nanometer quad-core processor Kunpeng 500.

Even Qualcomm and MediaTek's low-end quad-core processors were not available until the end of 2013, and mobile phones didn't appear until 2014.

And the cost of self-research and production is even lower.

The total R&D cost of the five chips is 5 million yuan, which means the R&D cost of one chip is 1 million yuan.

Assuming a mass production of 1 million chips, the diluted R&D cost of each chip is only yuan.

As for the material cost, it depends on the wafer price.

TSMC sells a 28-nanometer wafer for $3000, which is equivalent to RMB 2012 based on the average exchange rate of 6.3 in 18900.

About 700 chips can be cut out, and the yield rate is about 550. The wafer cost of a single chip is about 34.3 yuan.

Adding the packaging cost, shared R&D expenses, marketing expenses, etc., the cost per piece is heading towards $70+.

That is why the cost of Qualcomm 800 and Apple A5 is around 70.

TSMC sells 40-nanometer wafers for $2000. Based on 550 wafers, the cost of each wafer is about 23 yuan.

Fortunately, the R&D cost of low-end chips is low. Adding other costs such as packaging, the cost price of a single 40-nanometer mobile phone chip is about 40 yuan.

However, if Xingyi Wafer Factory produces it itself, the cost will be lower.

For example, TSMC charges $40 for a 2000-nanometer wafer, while Xingyi Foundry charges about $1500 for self-production. After all, TSMC has to make money!

1500 US dollars, or 9450 RMB, if 550 chips are cut out, the cost of each chip is 17 RMB.

Adding R&D costs, packaging costs, etc., it’s only about 30.

It is much cheaper than buying Qualcomm chips, and one-quarter cheaper than TSMC's foundry services.

But unfortunately, this is just the processor, and the external baseband chip must also be taken into account.

The cost of the baseband chip is nearly 30 yuan.

In this way, one Kunpeng 500 and one Pterosaur 2800 would cost 60 yuan a set.

The cost is doubled.

There is no way, this is the difference between external baseband and integrated baseband.

The system-on-chip (SOC) with integrated baseband includes CPU, GPU, baseband, DSP, Bluetooth, WIFI, etc.

The technical difficulty is much higher than the external baseband, but the cost is much lower!

Wang Yi sighed and looked at Williams:

"William, if we make a 40nm SOC with an integrated baseband chip, can we be sure that we can mass produce it before New Year's Day?"

"Mass production before New Year's Day!" William frowned and thought for a while: "Chairman, we started developing the 28nm integrated baseband Kunpeng 900 last year, but we can't make it before New Year's Day. The earliest will be the middle of next year."

"But the low-end SOC with 40nm integrated baseband is much simpler. If we go all out, there is great hope that it will be successful before New Year's Day!"

"But in this case, the 28-nanometer high-end chip Kunpeng 700 will not be available until after New Year's Day!"

Wang Yi nodded: "That's no problem. The second generation of Xingyi will not be released until September this year. The next generation of flagship phones will be released at least half a year later. There is no rush to release it in March next year!"

"Okay, that's no problem." Williams agreed. "Then we will start with the 40nm SOC Kunpeng 500 with integrated baseband and put it into mass production before New Year's Day. As for the high-end 28nm, external baseband Kunpeng 700, it will be put into mass production in February next year. The high-end 28nm chip Kunpeng 900 with integrated baseband will be put into mass production before June next year!"

"Okay!" Wang Yi nodded.

The release time of high-end phones must be staggered, with one model every half a year being enough.

However, a thousand-yuan phone could be released in January.

The time to market could be slowed down to February.

Giving public opinion a month to ferment could actually cause a bigger sensation.

After all, smartphones priced at one thousand yuan were definitely the best in the beginning of 2013.

This 40nm SOC Kunpeng 500 with integrated baseband saves a baseband chip, and the cost of each chip can be controlled to 30 yuan!

The cost of the thousand-yuan phone is completely reduced to 550 yuan, and the profit is considerable.

"I look forward to your achievements!" Wang Yi said with a smile, "But the performance can't be too bad. It must at least have the performance of NVIDIA's quad-core chip, the Integra 3!"

"That's no problem." Williams said with a smile, "Our chips started late, but there are advantages to starting late. Nvidia and Qualcomm's chips are all based on ARM's V7 architecture, while we directly use the latest ARM V8 architecture. We are one generation ahead of them in terms of architecture. Even a low-end 40nm processor is as good as Tegra 3 in performance."