High Cost! Chip Expensive! What Extreme Challenges Does 5g Business Model Encounter?

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(electronic enthusiast report text / Zhang Ying) the 5g market is making waves again. The recent three news are impressive. American media revealed that the price of 5g flagship mobile phones will rise significantly in 2021. It is reported that the current price of Qualcomm's 865 mobile platform is US $150. Considering that Huawei Hisilicon is unable to obtain TSMC's advanced chip with 5-nm process after being sanctioned by the US Department of Commerce, overseas media predict that the price of Qualcomm's snapdragon 875 mobile platform will reach US $250 per set. This is likely to lead to the sales price of the new 5g flagship mobile phone reaching more than $1000.

Product list of five 5g chip manufacturersFigure: electronic enthusiasts sort out according to public data

On July 28, American media reported that according to the latest data from countpoint, in the quarter from April to June, thanks to the continuous popularity and price reduction of iphone11, the sales volume of iPhones in China was 7.4 million, a year-on-year increase of 32%. The sales volume of Chinese mobile phone manufacturer Huawei was 36.6 million, a year-on-year increase of 14%. According to counter point research, 33% of the smartphone sales in China in the second quarter came from 5g phones. Analysts believe that Apple's iPhone 12, which supports 5g network, may sell well in the fourth quarter.

On July 27, Guo Ping, Huawei's rotating CEO, said that the global 5g users had exceeded 90 million, and the global 5g deployment had come to an end. The focus of the next stage was to develop industrial applications and release 5g network dividends. After the breakthrough of 5g mobile phone in the consumer market, the industrial application driven by 5g industrial module is obviously the focus of 5g development in the next stage.5g terminal did not exceed ten million shipments, and the industrial module began to solve the pain point problem

On July 29, the electronics enthusiast reporter visited the booth of Dingqiao Communication Technology Co., Ltd. and saw 5g industrial module based on Balong 5000 chip. It is reported that 5g industrial modules have been mass produced and have been used in many fields such as Dahua 5g camera, 5g live video backpack and 5g industrial gateway. Wang Fan, Internet of things product management manager of Dingqiao communication technology company, told reporters that 5g industrial module is obviously larger than 4G module. First, 5g network speed is high. Using massive MIMO technology, the integrated antenna of industrial module is more complex than 4G module. Second, in the future, with product iteration, device integration will increase, and the size of 5g industrial module will be smaller in the future. Multi antenna array is deployed, and heat dissipation is required.

Figure: Huawei 5g industrial moduleFigure: Dahua 5g cameraFigure: Acer z2-5g industrial gateway

Figure: Deli dv4000 live BackpackCui Fang, deputy general manager of the Technology Department of China mobile terminal company, told the media that 5g terminals are still in the initial development stage and are small in scale. The industry hopes that 5g terminals can be delivered in tens of millions of levels in 2020. Even if a 5g module is delivered in millions of levels, it is good.Product list of some domestic 5g module manufacturers

Figure: electronic enthusiasts sort out according to public data.

The person in charge of Aowei video told reporters that the company's product is 5g integrated video communication system, which is mainly used in live broadcast, industrial inspection, medical HD and other scenes. At present, there are two major pain points in the industry: 1. It has very high requirements for the network. Previously, it used a wired network. The cost of cabling and architecture is very high and inflexible. 2. When doing live mobile live broadcasting, the current method is to need a broadcasting vehicle, which has large investment and high cost. Wiring is a very big pain point. According to the author, the live broadcasting industry has tried to use 4G for live broadcasting before, but it is found that the 4G network capacity is not enough, which reflects the uplink and downlink speed, especially the real-time performance meets high requirements, and the experience is not good.

Now, the video requirements of live customers have been transformed into 4K, 8K or even higher pixels. The backpack supported by 5g industrial modules solves this pain point: first, the characteristics of 5g network embB reflect large bandwidth and high rate. 5g provides uplink bandwidth of 100m, which is more than 10 times that of 4G network. It can not only support 4K, 8K, but also support multi-channel 4K and 8K, 5g high rate can also transfer some functions on the local broadcasting vehicle to the cloud; Second, save costs. Now a 5g camera and 5g backpack can complete mobile live broadcasting, which saves a lot of expenses compared with the live broadcasting car; Third, the mobile performance is outstanding. As long as there is an area covered by 5g network, the mobility of live video can be fully reflected.

Bai Keke, general manager and vice president of MBB products of ZTE terminal business division, shared the case of subway private network. He analyzed and said: there are three pain points in traditional subway operation. Surveillance video is often blocked, emergency response time is long, and passenger flow prediction is difficult, which restricts the development of subway intelligent operation. "

On May 28, ZTE and Guangzhou Mobile took the lead in realizing the world's first 5g SA rail transit private network at Guangzhou tower subway station, which can realize 5g full coverage of Guangzhou tower subway station. ZTE provides Guangzhou metro station with 5g module vm9000 and 5g slicing terminal mc801a products supporting network slicing technology based on Qualcomm Xiaolong x55, which realizes the subway scene application based on 5g technology, including fast identification of personnel at the entrance and exit gates through 5g broadband and low delay provided by 801A when security guards or executives wear ar glasses, The security personnel fully release their hands during inspection to improve efficiency. Then, the 4K HD camera with 5g module built-in can monitor the whole subway products in an all-round way without dead angle, solve the blockage problem of traditional subway video monitoring, and improve the efficiency of operation management.

The cost of 5g terminal products is high, and industrial modules are subject to the superposition of multiple fees for chips, testing and patent licensing

The person in charge of 5g module manufacturers based on Qualcomm Xiaolong x55 platform once told reporters that the development cost of 5g module is high, and the main investment is divided into four parts: 5g module development requires a R & D team of at least 80 people and a one-year development cycle. In the 4G era, the license cost of the platform is basically $100000 to $500000. In the 5g era, the average license cost of the platform, whether Qualcomm or domestic 5g chip manufacturers, is more than $2 million; Third, the authentication fee of mainstream operators. 5g is multi band and the protocol is more complex. The authentication fee is basically 5 to 10 times that of 4G; Fourth, the investment cost of test instruments is also doubled. In the 4G era, the high-end instruments are about $100000. In the 5g era, they are basically 3 million yuan. In the future, with millimeter wave testing, one set of two will basically reach the level of 10 million. The superposition of these costs leads to huge expenditure on 5g module R & D.

Cui Fang, deputy general manager of the Technology Department of China mobile terminal Corporation, also told the media that 5g network is still in the early stage of deployment, and the application scale of 5g subdivided industry has not been increased. In addition, due to the complexity of 5g, it also brings the problem of high product cost.5g communication industry is still in the running in period of demand docking with other industries

The communication industry has not explored the needs of other industries deeply enough, while the industry customers have limited understanding of 5g technology, and there is a gap between the two. Considering the fragmented demand of the Internet of things industry, there is a large demand for innovative products, which also hinders the expansion of the industrial scale. Cui Fang, deputy general manager of the Technology Department of China mobile terminal company, said that the industry does not have a clear understanding of the terminal. Customers do not know how to add 5g communication products to industrial applications and how to form an effective product implementation scheme. It is unable to form a closed loop of information import, which also hinders the increase of product volume.

Well known enterprises in the industry told reporters that in manufacturing enterprises, after operators provide 5g solutions, if the price of 5g network is very high, the original intention of industrial Internet transformation is to reduce costs. When enterprises can't see the business model of recycling investment, enterprises are not willing to pay for it.Wu Chao, director of CSC Securities Research Institute and platinum analyst, told the media that the most critical thing in the second half of 2020 is to focus more on the landing of 5g applications, whether from the perspective of investment or the evolution of the whole industry. The first wave of 5g investment has passed, which is driven by policy and technology. The second wave is the stage of business driving and industry leading.She pointed out that with the landing of 5g commercial rhythm and the improvement of terminal penetration, the penetration rate of 5g intelligent hardware is relatively high. In addition to mobile phones, such as cars, intelligent security, intelligent metering and white appliances, the penetration rate is relatively high. This is some application scenarios that we should look forward to. In 2020, HD live broadcasting will develop rapidly. Telemedicine, intelligent manufacturing and intelligent Internet connected vehicles will increase the demand for 5g terminals.

In the future, how to increase the volume of 5g terminals will bring great variables with the outbreak of application demand in 5g industry. We will wait and see.This article is original by the electronic enthusiast network. It is prohibited to reprint without authorization. To reprint, please add the micro signal elecfans999.