Domestic "Beidou Chip" War is Hard

Since the end of 2012, Beidou has been in commercial use for more than half a year. Has the Beidou chip war exploded?

The chip is the "brain" of Beidou terminal equipment and is the core of Beidou equipment. At that time, the announcement of commercialization and the announcement of ICD at the same time meant that foreign chip makers would enter in large numbers. There was widespread concern in the industry that domestic companies would respond. The industry's big shuffle is inevitable.

After half a year has passed, the Beidou market has not been as enthusiastic as all of us are expecting, and it has not been as deadly as the industry is concerned about.

The darkness before the dawn is quiet. Cao Chong, director of the China Satellite Navigation and Positioning Association Consultation Center, believes that the expected competition does not appear, but there are moments of crisis. He Gang, general manager of Hexin Xingtong Technology (Beijing) Co., Ltd. believes that foreign manufacturers will have a substantial impact on domestic manufacturers from 2014 onwards.

There is no official product release for foreign chips

If Beidou wants globalization, it will inevitably face competition. After the ICD was announced, foreign manufacturers such as u-blox, CSR, and other navigation product vendors as well as NovAtel, Trimble and other high-precision product manufacturers have announced their support for BeiDou. This also confirms to some extent that the BeiDou market has a very broad prospect. Although foreign companies have long-term GPS accumulation, Beidou is also a new system for them and it will take some time to explore and test.

According to the introduction of Hu Gang, general manager of the core and star technology (Beijing) Co., Ltd., navigation products, foreign manufacturers currently have no official Beidou products on the market. It is worth mentioning that some manufacturers in Taiwan now also have relatively mature navigation module products available. In terms of high-precision products, Trimble and NovAtel's high-precision products have officially supported the Beidou system. Based on the Beidou system's signal system advantages, its three-system product positioning performance has significantly improved compared to GPS/GLONASS dual-system products.

Hu Gang stated that the competing concerns of foreign companies and their commitment to the Beidou industry have fully demonstrated that Beidou has a promising prospect as a Chaoyang industry market, and everyone has a high firewood record. This has a positive effect on the promotion and application of Beidou. The entry of foreign mainstream satellite navigation companies is believed to have greater promotion for the total market capacity. On the one hand, product maturity promotes practical application. On the other hand, Beidou has gradually become recognized and accepted by the industry and the general public. In 2013, the Beidou navigation market showed an explosive growth. Although the total market capacity and GPS have not yet matched, it is nearly 10 times faster than the Beidou shipments in the previous two years. For navigation-type products, currently no foreign manufacturers have officially launched Beidou products. It is expected that the company will have a substantial impact on domestic manufacturers since 2014. In terms of high-precision products, Trimble and NovAtel have supported the Beidou system's three system products, which have been introduced and promoted in batches. Based on the advantages of three-system positioning performance, they have impacted on Beidou/GPS dual-system products from domestic manufacturers.

The domestic market needs iron

In the face of direct competition from foreign mainstream manufacturers, domestic companies need to work harder to quickly launch products with international competitiveness to win the market based on the products and technology foundations previously achieved under the support of state policies.

Through the semi-annual report of major domestic manufacturers, it can be learned that the company is still in a state of loss-making operation. However, the company did not give up scientific research and innovation. Domestic satellite navigation companies represented by Beidou Xingtong Company, through continuous core technological innovation, have since 2009 released successively high-performance SOC chips with world-class standards and Beidou for the navigation and timing market. Multi-mode navigation GNSS chips, based on years of technology accumulation and industrialization application experience in the high-precision field and navigation market, related products have been recognized by the market and applied on a large scale.

It is worth mentioning that the second-generation baseband chip, Hummingbird Humbird, released by Hexinxing in May of this year, supports Beidou, GPS, GLONASS, and Galileo four satellite navigation systems and can simultaneously support two frequency signals. , is the company's first 55nm process-compatible multimode GNSS SOC chip for industry applications and quasi-consumer markets, and is also the smallest size Beidou multimode GNSS chip on the domestic market. The chip features low power consumption, ultra-high sensitivity, sub-meter positioning accuracy, support for pseudo-range differential, support for raw view measurement output, support for AGNSS, DGNSS, extensive feature extension, ease of integration, and development. A new generation of navigation modules based on Humbird has been delivered to partners for complete integration testing, and customers have high enthusiasm and feedback. The new module is mainly targeted for vehicle monitoring/navigation, industrial handheld/mobile phone and timing applications, and the recent shipment volume is expected to reach the order of 100,000 or more.

Faced with market competition, compared with foreign companies that have a sound industrial chain and ecosystem, our disadvantage is not enough understanding of users. We are also deepening the needs of customers and product innovation to meet customer needs. animal. Therefore, we must increase internal strength and make great efforts to quickly improve the overall performance of the basic products. In addition to positioning performance, the degree of chip integration and power consumption must be improved. In addition, it is necessary to dig deeper into applications such as Beidou's short message communication function to achieve better performance. The PPC (performance, power consumption, cost) is used to consolidate technology and optimize costs in the industry.

Grasp the opportunity to face the challenge

In addition to challenges, industry players should also see opportunities. Insiders said that Beidou is a new system for u-blox and Qualcomm, and it takes time to explore. For example, u-blox's Beidou products may not be released until 2014. Just based on long-term technology accumulation, the cost of time is better than that of domestic companies. What we have to challenge is this time difference, not the 30 years of GPS development. Moreover, the domestic enterprises represented by the Big Dipper Communications also have their own special advantages. They are based on the profound understanding of the Beidou system and the long-term experience of product technology accumulation and scale application under the strong support of Beidou authorities and government departments at all levels. It has established a good cooperative relationship with the upstream and downstream industries, and the Beidou industry chain has basically taken shape, which already has the strength to meet the competition of foreign manufacturers.

At the national level, Beidou was included in the Twelfth Five-Year Plan for Strategic Emerging Industries. Beijing, including Beijing as one of the strategic emerging industries, was included in the government work report. According to industry analysis data, the scale of the Beidou industry is expected to reach 400 billion yuan in 2020. The establishment of various industrial bases has indeed promoted the industrialization of Beidou to a certain extent, and more enterprises will be actively involved in the Beidou business. However, drawing on the history of the development of foreign GPS industry, the market will ultimately win the survival of the fittest, and a small number of technological innovation companies will lead the market. At the same time, it is suggested that government support should fall into a number of core and key areas, pay attention to the improvement of Beidou's industrial chain, promote the continuous innovation of key enterprises, master core technologies, improve product competitiveness, and develop world-class satellite navigation products to achieve large-scale applications. The key to promoting the real industrialization of Beidou.