Low-bit rate NB-IoT cellular network, with a transmission rate of up to 100Kbps, mainly used in smart water meters, shared bicycles, environmental monitoring and other devices that do not require high data transmission rates; according to Counterpoint data, in the second quarter of 2021 The revenue of mobile IoT chips increased by 60% year-on-year, and the shipments reached 100 million. Among these chips, the shipments of 5G chips increased by 800%, 4GCat1 increased by 100%, and NB-IoT has also been greatly improved. .

The Internet of Things has become an important direction of future network development, and the market size is also increasing year by year. In addition, with the gradual improvement of the construction coverage of communication base stations, the development of IoT applications such as the Internet of Vehicles, building automation, and smart retail has been promoted, and the demand for cellular IoT chips is also expanding. ReportLinker predicts that the cellular IoT market will grow from $3.9 billion in 2021 to $15.4 billion by 2027.

Hive IoT Classification

Existing cellular networks are classified into three categories according to the transmission rate: low, medium and high transmission rates. Low bit rate NB-IoT cellular network, the transmission rate can reach up to 100Kbps, mainly used in smart water meters, shared bicycles, environmental monitoring and other devices that B32-1200 does not require very high data transmission rates; medium speed is 2G, 3G cellular Network, the transmission data is between 100Kbps~1Mbps, mainly used for mobile payment, smart wear, smart home, etc., low power consumption, low frequency band equipment; 4G high-speed, 5G cellular network, the transmission rate is relatively high, generally above 1Mbps Among them, the peak value of the 5G cellular network uplink is 100Mbps . At present, the high-speed cellular network is mainly used in the fields of car networking, autonomous driving, and video surveillance, and its peak value reaches 500Mbps.

NB-IoT cellular network is the most widely used in mobile Internet of Things applications, accounting for 60%, of which 2G and 3G cellular networks account for 30%, and 4G cellular networks only account for 10%.

Mobile Internet of Things Chip Market

With the rapid development of network technology, manufacturers have also introduced more and more intelligent IoT terminal devices to the market, and the release of demand for autonomous driving and car networking will bring more growth space for cellular IoT chips. .

According to Counterpoint data, in the second quarter of 2021, the revenue of mobile Internet of Things chips increased by 60% year-on-year, and shipments reached 100 million pieces. Among these chips, the shipments of 5G chips increased by 800%, and 4GCat.1 increased by 100%. %, NB-IoT has also been greatly improved. In terms of chip manufacturers' shipments, Qualcomm ranked first, followed by Huawei, and UNISOC third.

Apple still maintains a relatively high shipment volume of mobile IoT chips, ranking first. In the second quarter of this year, HiSilicon's NB-IoT chip shipments accounted for more than 90% of the total NB-IoT chip shipments. Unigroup Zhanrui's revenue in the first half of the year increased by 240% compared with the same period of the previous year, of which more than 100% of the mobile IoT chip companies in the second quarter. What are the advantages of the above three companies to reach the top three in terms of shipments? In the next step, we will conduct research on three products: Qualcomm, HiSilicon, and Ziguang Zhanrui.

Intel QCM6490.

Qualcomm IoT solution QCM6490 based on Kryo670CPU architecture Kryo670CPU architecture is an IoT solution characterized by high latency and AI acceleration. QCM6490 supports Gigabit cellular network and WiFi access, including TDD and FDD frequencies, NSA and SA modes, and mmWave of DSS, in addition, WiFi6 and WiFi6E are also guaranteed to a certain extent, higher data transmission efficiency and lower network Delay, also added functions such as dynamic ISP and AI edge computing. High performance even at low power. This product is suitable for transportation, warehousing, retail, wearable medical equipment and other fields.

HiSilicon 200.

In NB-IoT chips, it occupies 90% of the market share. HiSilicon's NB-IoT chips are Boudica200 and Boudica150, which occupy 90% of the market share. Boudica200 Compared with these two chips, Boudica200 has lower power consumption, and it also integrates BLE5.0 function, which reduces the design of external circuits, making the terminal product smaller and stronger overall performance.

Boudica200 is a cellular IoT chip with high integration, high energy consumption, long and short distance communication and computing. Boudica200 adopts HiSilicon's self-developed application processor, protocol processor and security processor, the main frequency is up to 80MHz model">80MHz model">80MHz model">80MHz model">80MHz model">80MHz model">80MHz model" >80MHz Model">80MHz Model">80MHz Model">80MHz Model">80MHz Model">80MHz Model">80MHz Model">80MHz Model">80MHz Model">80MHz Model">80MHz Model">80MHz. Communication baseband, RF transceiver, RF amplifier, iSIM, PUM and memory, etc., HiSilicon reduces product design cost and product size through a highly integrated approach. Boudica200 supports Bluetooth 5.0 and 3GPPNB-IoT in communication. It is worth noting that Boudica200 also joins GNSS, which can realize positioning function through ECID/OTDOA technology. In terms of security, through the hardware encryption algorithm and independent security core structure, it can easily meet the commercial-level requirements of the built-in SIM in China and Europe. It can be used in smart water meters, shared bicycles, smart door locks and other fields.

Ziguang Zhanrui

Future Unisplendour Zhanrui is the future Unisplendour Zhanrui, which has been committed to the research and development of SoC in recent years. In the second quarter, UNISOC's mobile phone processor chip shipments were 68.2 million, with a market share of 8.4%, ranking behind Qualcomm and MediaTek. For mobile Internet of Things chips, the market share is also the third.

V510 is a dual-core processor with a 12nm process flow of 1.35GHz. In terms of communication, it can support 2G/3G/4G/5G and Sub-6GHz multi-mode cellular networks at the same time. It is connected to the 5G network and can achieve a 1.15Gbps uplink rate. and high-speed transmission of 2.3Gbps downlink rate. V510 complies with industrial-grade chip application standards, supports PCIE2.0/USB3.0/SDIO3.0/OTG/UART/SPI interface connections, and enhances the expandability of the chip. V510 can not only be used as a communication baseband, but also can be used in consumer terminal products such as smartphones and MiFi, such as car networking, industrial control, and telemedicine.

Summarize

In smart cities, 5G plays an important role in the development of autonomous driving technology. From the perspective of the network access ratio of cellular IoT devices, only 10% of IoT devices adopt 4G/5G. At present, the penetration rate of 5G mobile IoT is still at a low level, and there is still a huge market space to be developed by cellular IoT chip companies.

In addition, the market share of mobile IoT chips ranks in the top three, and both domestic companies are exciting. It is worth mentioning that UNISOC was mediocre in the 4G era, while UNISOC in the 5G era is one of the 5G era. miniature.