In 2014, the LTE wafer wars became hot. After the launch of the LTE chip solution by MediaTek, Broadcom and Intel, Qualcomm's market share in the LTE chip market is gradually being divided; it will bring the competitive situation of the LTE chip market into a new situation in 2014.
Qualcomm and MediaTek have unveiled the 2014 Long-Range Evolution (LTE) wafer war. MediaTek officially launched the eight-core smart phone solution-MT6592 at the end of November, laying out a high-end market. In the future, the processor will be equipped with a multi-frequency multi-mode modem (Modem) and integrated into a system-on-a-chip (SoC) for MediaTek. There are more chips to compete with Qualcomm and stand firmer in the LTE market.
MediaTek's biggest competitor, Qualcomm, is not to be outdone, and immediately announced the next day's Gobi 9x35, which supports the Advanced Long Range Evolution (LTE-A), with a maximum bandwidth of 40MHz and a download speed of 300Mbit/s. Qualcomm wants to use this to emphasize the technology gap between the company and MediaTek and its market dominance.
However, the battle between MediaTek and Qualcomm is not limited to application processors and baseband chips. It is understood that the two companies have extended their reach to the power amplifier (PA) field in order to continue to strengthen their competitive advantage in the LTE market. They want to further enhance the battery life of mobile devices with Envelope Tracking technology (Figure 1). This attracts manufacturers to favor.
Figure 1 Qualcomm Envelope Tracking Technology Image Source: Qualcomm
Envelope tracking technology is hot
Figure 2 Yang Wenwei (right), director of the System Application Division of MediaTek's Wireless Technology Development Division, believes that envelope tracking technology will be an important key to extending the endurance of mobile devices in the LTE era. Left is Cai Jiwen, general manager of Taiwan's Rohde Schwartz.
Yang Wenwei (Fig. 2), director of the System Application Division of MediaTek's Wireless Technology Development Division, said that in the LTE era, the power-saving benefits of mobile devices using envelope tracking technology will be very obvious. The envelope tracking technique adjusts the supply voltage of the power stage (Power Stage) based on the packet output signal, thereby improving the peak current efficiency of the power amplifier. Envelope tracking technology is quite effective for the Frequency Division Duplex Long-Range Evolution (FDD-LTE) program. Since the technology is always in an always-on state, adding envelope tracking technology will significantly reduce power consumption. The process can reduce the transmit power of at least 80?100 milliamperes (mA) to improve the endurance of the mobile device.
In fact, Qualcomm has pre-empted the packet tracking technology in the RF360 front-end solution in Google's latest mobile phone Nexus 5, significantly reducing system temperature, power consumption and board area, allowing the Nexus 5 to have LTE and 802.11ac wireless LANs. Communication functions such as Wi-Fi can still maintain a long-term endurance of 17 hours of continuous talk.
Nexus 5 battery life is increasing
Murthy Renduchintala, executive vice president and co-president of Qualcomm Technologies, points out that the latest generation of Android operating system, KitKat, combined with Qualcomm's mobile processor, will provide excellent action with LTE connectivity, graphics calculus and high-speed processing performance. Device user experience.
It is understood that the Nexus 5 adopts Qualcomm QFE1100, which is an important component of Qualcomm's RF360 front-end. It can assist original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) to develop single-chip and 4G LTE designs supporting global frequency bands in a comprehensive system-level solution. In addition, the QFE1100 also has an envelope tracking technology designed for 3G/4G LTE devices. Compared with the traditional radio frequency (RF) front-end solution, the LTE data processor chip can dynamically adjust the power amplifier voltage with a temperature reduction of 30%. Electricity consumption is also reduced by 20%, and the quality of mobile devices transmitting signals is also improved.
Renduchintala further pointed out that because Qualcomm's envelope tracking technology uses highly integrated multi-frequency multi-mode PA, it can significantly reduce the board area, which is the key to the Nexus 5's ability to provide consumers with longer battery life in a thinner and lighter design.
The Nexus 5 also features Qualcomm's Snapdragon 800 processor for improved overall user experience, graphics richness and battery efficiency. According to official Google data, the Nexus 5 has a built-in 2,300 mAh (mAh) battery for 17 hours of continuous talk and up to 300 hours of standby time; or consumers can use dual-band (2.4GHz/5GHz) Wi-Fi. More than 8.5 hours, and 7 hours of LTE network alone. In addition, Google built a wireless charging function in the Nexus 5 to support the Qi standard of the Wireless Charging Alliance (WPC).
Create product differentiation MediaTek focus packet tracking technology
At the same time that Qualcomm successfully introduced packet tracking technology into Nexus 5, MediaTek also fully developed R&D packet tracking technology, and wanted to use this technology as an important weapon to enter the LTE market.
Targeting the business opportunities in China's LTE market, MediaTek has launched a comprehensive layout. In addition to the introduction of the eight-core application processor at the end of November 2013, next year, China will further introduce a system single-chip integrated with quad-core/eight-core and LTE baseband processors. In order to narrow the competition gap with Qualcomm, the company is also actively working with third-party partners to develop packet tracking technology to reduce the power consumption of LTE mobile phone RF front-end systems and extend battery life.
In the past, power amplifiers used to smoothly amplify and transmit signals to the Cell Tower. They often operated at a fixed supply voltage, and the set value was much higher than that required for their operation, resulting in low energy efficiency and redundant power consumption. The heat is dissipated, causing the system temperature to rise while reducing battery life.
In addition, the multi-frequency multi-mode power amplifier efficiency and the relationship between the filter will also affect the power efficiency; and packet tracking technology will reduce the power amplifier current to achieve a significant reduction in overall power consumption.
Yang Wenwei further pointed out that multi-frequency multi-mode power amplifiers are superior to the former in terms of size, support frequency band, performance and cost compared to the split solution. In order to achieve multi-frequency multi-mode design, the industry will focus on the power efficiency of power amplifiers, in addition to increasing the number of power amplifier ports to support multiple bands such as wideband code division multiple access (WCDMA) and LTE. To present a more complete user experience.
According to Yang Wenwei, since the efficiency of the envelope tracking modulator (Modulator) is critical to the RF front-end, MediaTek and other manufacturers are also investing in R&D, hoping to help customers provide higher operational efficiency in a smaller printed circuit board area. RF system.
Just as Qualcomm and MediaTek's two major processor factories focus on envelope tracking technology, Intel (Intel) and Broadcom (Broadcom) are also active, and strive to grab the LTE chip market.
Striving for the LTE market to explore Intel/Broadcom
Figure 3 Gartner research vice president Hong Weiwei pointed out that with the successive launch of LTE solutions and integration of AP's SoC solutions, the competition of LTE chip vendors will become more and more hot next year.
Hong Weiwei (Fig. 3), vice president of research at Gartner, said that 2014 could be regarded as the official start of the LTE chip makers. At that time, the market competition situation will not be like this year, and Qualcomm will monopolize more than 90% of the market. The launch of products from MediaTek, Broadcom and Intel has created a new situation of “one big three smallâ€.
Gartner predicts that Qualcomm will still hold 80% to 90% of the market next year, and MediaTek is expected to win a place in the Chinese mainland market after releasing a quad-core/eight-core application processor with LTE baseband chip solution by the end of this year. In the middle of next year, after the system single-chip solution of integrating the baseband chip with the application processor, the market share of smart phones and tablets will be further expanded, and the market share of LTE chips will be won.
However, since MediaTek's current LTE solution is going to enter the market outside mainland China, it will still have to pass the verification process of the local telecom operators, which will take 6-9 months, compared with the acquisition of Renesas LTE assets by Broadcom. It has a dual-core LTE system single-chip solution through the North American, Japanese and European verification markets, and the supply chain relationship between Broadcom and Samsung is very stable, so it is expected to stabilize shipments through the Samsung mobile device to Europe. Push up the market penetration of Broadcom's LTE solution.
Still, Intel is not a fuel-efficient lamp. Intel's LTE solution, the XMM 7160, has passed interoperability testing with major infrastructure vendors in Asia, Europe, and North America. Not only that, in order to accelerate the penetration rate of its LTE solution market, the company also launched PCIe M.2 LTE module, which can add multi-mode (2G/3G/LTE) data link function to various types of devices.
According to Intel's official data, M.2 modules are currently being tested for interoperability with first-tier service providers around the world, and will soon be integrated into products from various vendors, including Huawei and Sierra Wireless. And Telit, these modules are expected to be built in the tablet and ultra-thin notebooks that were shipped by major manufacturers around the world in 2014. As a result, Intel's LTE solution market performance in 2014 There will be great gains.
Overall, global LTE chip shipments will double again next year, and the competition among chip vendors will become more intense, but Qualcomm will remain at the leading edge. MediaTek will benefit from China Mobile and other Chinese telecom operators. After the revenue recovery, the competition for competition between Broadcom and Intel will start to burn in Europe.
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