In recent years, with the development of semiconductor technology, traditional MCU has been unable to fully meet the needs of intelligent terminals, SoC came into being, with its strong performance, low power consumption, high flexibility characteristics, so that a single chip can complete the complete electronic system. Socs are prevalent in the mobile computing (such as smartphones and tablets) and edge computing markets. They are also commonly used in embedded systems such as WiFi routers and the Internet of Things. At present, SoC has become the most versatile hardware, integrating various functional modules such as CPU, GPU, RAM, ADC, DAC, Modem, high-speed DSP, etc. Some SoCs also integrate power management modules and control modules of various external devices, and also need to consider the distribution and utilization of each bus.

Future development trend of SOC chips

The development of SoC is a balance of performance, computing power, power consumption, and process difficulty. At present, AI has become a must for major SoC manufacturers, and at the same time, higher requirements are put forward for algorithms, and the realization of AI algorithms in scenarios with limited power consumption has become the key, and the efficiency of computing power is extremely important. Taking the Apple A14SoC as an example, the A14 uses a 5nm process, and the CPU performance is improved by 16% compared with the A13, the GPU is improved by about 10%, and the performance of the AI accelerator Neural Engine is nearly 100%. In the future, high-end SoCs such as mobile phones, tablets and servers will continue to develop towards high performance.

According to the application scenario classification, SoC mainly has three main application directions: high-end SoC chips are mostly designed with a large core plus more middle core and small core architecture, after years of iterative updates, ARM-based CPU core is constantly upgraded, and the process technology, frequency and performance are greatly improved. At the same time, high-end SoC chips, especially mobile chips, generally add integrated or external baseband to achieve traditional mobile terminal functions such as mobile access and telephone.

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In terms of applications, high-end SoC chips are mainly concentrated in mobile phones, tablets, and server markets. At present, the manufacturing process of the second-high-end SoC chip is mainly 28nm with mature technology, and some advanced products of the company have entered the 12nm-14nm specification. The CPU is mostly based on the Cortex-A53 and Cortex-A7 architectures, and the main frequency is generally above 1.2GHz. In terms of applications, the second-high-end SoC chips are mostly used in security, intelligent audio, the Internet of Things and other fields, and the computing power requirements are slightly lower than that of smartphones and servers. Dedicated SoC chip applications include TWS headphones, smart watches, etc. Such SoC chip development is suitable for specific application scenarios. Dedicated SoCs are closer to applications in the MCU field, such as the core of the TWS headset is the smart Bluetooth audio SoC chip, which undertakes wireless connectivity, audio processing and other auxiliary functions. In general, SoC chips have a wide range of applications, and consumer electronics and intelligent Internet of Things are the two major areas of SoC chip demand. In the consumer electronics market, the explosive growth of consumer electronics such as smart phones and tablet computers has spawned a large number of chip demands and promoted the great development of the chip industry. New application scenarios and application fields such as smart commercial display, smart retail, and automotive electronics continue to emerge, providing good development opportunities for chip designers; In the era of Internet of Things and artificial intelligence, the birth of innovative technology products has brought broader market opportunities for the integrated circuit design industry.