Today, IP is regarded as the blueprint of chip design, especially the emergence of authorized IP, which greatly reduces the difficulty of chip design, thereby promoting the prosperity of today’s chip industry. The growth of Chinese chip manufacturers is also inseparable from the support of IP. At the same time, with the increase in chip complexity and chip design costs, the demand for IP by domestic chip manufacturers is also increasing. It can be said that the development of domestic IP industry is an important pillar for the progress of my country’s future chip industry.
Amou Technology is the largest CPU IP supplier in China. Since its establishment in 2018, it has been committed to promoting the localization of the integrated circuit industry. In order to further empower the chip design industry with an annual output value of over 100 billion yuan in China, and to help the development of the intelligent computing industry and the upgrade of computing architecture, Amou Technology recently held a new business brand strategy conference and announced a series of new measures , to help China’s chip industry change lanes and overtake.
From the establishment of the joint venture to the release of a new strategy
As we all know, Arm Technology was born out of Arm. It is an independently operated and Chinese-owned joint venture company. Its current executive chairman and CEO Wu Xiongang is one of the key figures in promoting Arm Technology’s landing in China. As early as 2014, after Wu Xiongang joined Arm’s global executive committee and served as president of Greater China, he saw the growth potential of China’s chip market, so in 2015, he promoted “China Strategy 2.0” and launched the Chinese business. A joint venture company was split and established, and three years later, Amou Technology officially operated independently.
In the past three years, Amou Technology has made remarkable achievements. According to Wu Xiongang, since its establishment in 2018, Amou Technology has not only inherited Arm’s CPU business in China, but also contributed to the cumulative shipment of Arm CPUs exceeding 20 billion pieces. More importantly, Amou Technology has been making a comprehensive layout for new businesses in the digital age since its inception. From the perspective of the progress of the new business, up to now, ARM Technology’s four product lines have all been mass-produced, with shipments of over 100 million. There are more than 90 partners across the country, of which 29 have achieved tape-out and mass production.
While they won the favor of the market, driven by the demand of the terminal market, the chip industry has changed again – the emergence of technologies such as AI, 5G, and IoT has driven the market to develop in the direction of intelligence. In this process, computing Power is also increasingly being provided by the CPU and GPU to be provided by the NPU, and the future will enter the era of converged computing dominated by multi-computing architectures. That is to say, with the development of intelligence, the market demand of NPU will exceed that of CPU in the future.
From the perspective of Arm Technology, which is rooted in the development of China’s chip industry, NPU based on Domain Architecture (DSA) has achieved great success. Architecture – Superdomain Architecture (xDSA) to meet the corresponding requirements and challenges, and to solve the problem of fragmentation by fusing multiple domains. At the same time, from a market perspective, more and more domestic companies have also released their own dedicated AI chips. This market environment also provides opportunities for Chinese chip manufacturers to change lanes and overtake.
However, for Chinese chip manufacturers, in order to meet the market demand for NPU, large manufacturers can still conduct self-research, but small manufacturers are often trapped in funds and energy and prefer open source design. In order to meet the needs of this part of domestic chip manufacturers, Arm Technology recently released its A+X two-wheel drive strategy, that is, one wheel is the agent Arm CPU IP, and the other wheel is the self-developed core power XPU.
Arm Technology believes that the A+X two-wheel drive strategy is in line with China’s domestic and international dual-cycle strategy. By being compatible with Arm CPU, Arm Technology can also fully integrate with the international market.
Create a self-developed business brand “core power”
In Arm Technology’s two-wheel strategy, the “A” part is a well-known part in the industry, and its self-developed “X” part is more worthy of our attention. “X” is the XPU product with its own architecture. It should be noted here that the XPU proposed by Arm Technology is not the CPU and GPU architecture we usually understand, but refers to an open intelligent data stream fusion computing platform.
According to reports, the main products of XPU are the IP services developed by Amou Technology, including “Zhouyi” NPU, “Shanhai” SPU, “Linglong” ISP, and “Linglong” VPU. The company hopes to open up a bridge between these four product lines and empower the development of China’s chip industry by providing combined products.
Amou Technology believes that under the complex and changeable trading environment, the company, as a Chinese-funded joint venture company, has more responsibility to help the development of China’s chip industry, especially in the domestic visual processing, application and market. In this case, the Chinese chip industry has the opportunity to change lanes and overtake, and what Arm Technology has to do is to help the Chinese chip industry realize this vision.
To make the previous independent IP into a more acceptable solution, it is not only necessary for Amou Technology to have IP products, but also for them to provide corresponding services. Therefore, driven by this demand, Amou Technology Co., Ltd. Based on the XPU architecture and business part, the technology announced its new business brand – “core power”. That is to say, Arm Technology will rely on “core power” to provide the market with high-performance, customizable independent architecture XPU IP products and services.
As a new brand launched by Amou Technology, the company has also designed a new image for Core Dynamics. From I to i, Core Dynamics not only represents customized IP solutions from point to surface, but also represents the era of XPU. The infinite possibilities of its self-developed IP. The design that resembles a turbine engine also means that they expect to continue to provide continuous power for the Chinese chip industry.
“During the years of Amou Technology’s exploration in the Chinese market, the company has found that the demand for highly customized IP is increasing, especially after terminal manufacturers including home appliances, automobiles and other fields have begun to set foot in the chip field, they hope to find suitable customized chips for their To help them shorten the cycle of chip research and development.” Wu Xiongang said: “Therefore, Arm Technology positions the core dynamic as not to do chips, but to customize IP solutions for customers.”
Putting an idea into practice is never easy, and for Arm Tech, the accumulation over the past few years can make their dreams come true. First of all, the company’s accumulation of funds is a solid backing for their self-developed IP, and secondly, the company’s R&D team of up to 400 people has built the cornerstone of their self-developed road. In addition, Anmou Technology also believes that the reason why their self-developed IP can be implemented is the ecological support.
The construction of ecology is also one of the keys for Core Power to become a leader in the XPU field. Amou Technology pointed out that in terms of business model, Core Power has always worked with its partners to achieve its own success by helping partners succeed. The biggest advantage of Core Power is that it has many excellent industrial partners to create a win-win and shared ecosystem.
In order to promote the construction of an open source and open XPU global ecosystem, Amou Technology also joined more than 50 industry leading enterprises and institutions to jointly initiate the establishment of the “Intelligent Computing Industry Technology Innovation Alliance” (ONIA) (Open NPU Innovation Alliance) in July this year. , referred to as ONIA), and launched the world’s first open source neural network processor instruction set architecture (NPU ISA). According to reports, the purpose of this technology innovation consortium is to build an intelligent computing industry ecology initiated by China and based on the world’s leading technology, and to realize the continuous evolution of NPU processor innovation and intelligent computing. And this also coincides with the concept of the new core power brand launched by Amou Technology today.
Amou Technology’s new strategy opens up a new situation
The new “Core Power” brand released by Amou Technology represents, to a certain extent, a new strategy with leading technology, mature products and a more flexible business model.
From the establishment of the joint venture company to the implementation of the A+X two-wheel drive strategy, it can be seen that Amou Technology has further clarified its own positioning. Witness the further improvement of the company’s strength.
The author believes that, especially under the catalysis of emerging scenarios, the “X” strategic part represented by core power will become the key to the future development of Amou Technology, will be the main driving force for their future growth, and will also drive them in the IP market. rise in status. For themselves, the release of this new business brand strategy is a new life for them.
On this basis, the launch of the new business brand also means that Amou Technology has a deeper understanding of the chip market – the generation of the XPU product line and the redefinition of the integrated computing architecture, which is an innovation for the industry.
From an industrial point of view, as a Chinese-owned holding company, the improvement of Amou Technology’s position in the IP market means another progress in the domestic IP industry. From a longer-term perspective, as mentioned at the beginning of the article, the progress of the domestic IP industry is one of the important cornerstones of the development of my country’s chip industry. And Anmou Technology’s exploration in the field of IP may also mean that they have planted the seeds of hope for the future development of the domestic chip industry. You can imagine that when this seed takes root in hundreds of millions of chips, it will empower thousands of people. Industry, perhaps China’s chip industry will also usher in a new highlight moment.
We have reason to believe that under the A+X strategy of Amou Technology, they will bring more surprises to the domestic chip industry.
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