As various chip companies have released new chips one after another, the new high-end chip Snapdragon 875 from Qualcomm, the leader of mobile phone chips, has also begun to appear in performance testing software. From a performance point of view, this chip will undoubtedly become the king of the Android market. However, it is a pity that this chip does not integrate 5G baseband.

It is said that the Snapdragon 875 will adopt a 1+3+4 architecture, that is, one X1 + three A78 + four A55, the X1 core is the latest high-performance core released by ARM, and its performance has been greatly improved. It provides powerful performance. According to AnTuTu’s test, the running score of this chip can reach 850,000 points, crushing all current Android mobile phone chips.

Qualcomm’s new 5G baseband is called X60, which is also produced using 5nm process. Compared with other Android mobile phone chips, the biggest feature of X60 is that it supports 5G millimeter wave technology, which is the 5G technology that the United States has always emphasized, while China and Europe mainly promote 5G. Centimeter wave technology, Qualcomm’s X60 baseband supports both 5G millimeter wave and 5G centimeter wave technology in order to meet the needs of all parts of the world. Perhaps the technology is too complex and the power consumption is too high to be integrated with the Snapdragon 875 chip as a SOC chip.

The chip does not integrate the baseband, which will cause the power consumption and cost of the mobile phone chip to be too high. The Snapdragon 865 chip released by Qualcomm last year did not integrate the 5G baseband X55, resulting in many 5G mobile phones using the Snapdragon 865 chip. The Xiaomi Mi 10 with the Snapdragon 865 chip only costs 1,500 yuan for chips and patent fees paid to Qualcomm, accounting for nearly 40% of the price of the phone.

The currently released 5G mobile phones generally have the problem of excessive power consumption. The iPhone 12 released by Apple a few days ago was exposed to the sharply shortened battery life due to the surge in power consumption after turning on 5G. Other Android phones can only increase the battery capacity in order to ensure the battery life.

The result is that the 5G baseband has a small coverage area and a large amount of data transmission due to the high frequency band used in 5G. However, the use of an external baseband for Qualcomm’s 5G chip Snapdragon 875 will undoubtedly further affect the battery life of the mobile phone. This is also the current Android mobile phone. Because of the general weight of more than 200g, Android 5G mobile phones are also ridiculed as half-jin phones.

Due to well-known reasons, TSMC cannot manufacture chips for Huawei, and the only 5G high-end chips that Chinese mobile phone companies can choose is MediaTek. I wonder if the high-end chips that MediaTek will release can compete with Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 875. If MediaTek’s 5G high-end chips have its own advantages, it will further consolidate its leading position in China’s mobile phone chip market. MediaTek has taken the lead over Qualcomm in the Chinese mobile phone chip market this year.

Faced with the opportunities provided by Qualcomm’s weakening in the Chinese market, South Korea’s Samsung also took the opportunity to strengthen its attack on the Chinese mobile phone chip market. Recently, there have been rumors that Xiaomi and OPPO are interested in cooperating with Samsung, and vivo, which has cooperated with Samsung before, will further increase. strength of cooperation.

Qualcomm’s failure to integrate 5G baseband on 5G chips shows that its technical strength has been weakened, and it is quite difficult to continue to maintain its position as the world’s largest mobile phone chip leader. The chip market is under pressure.