Five Big Trends - Analysis of Rockchip Technology trends in 2015 Hong Kong Electronics Fair

2015-10-19

After the opening of Global Resources Exhibition on Oct.11, Hongkong Electronics Fair Fall Edition held by HKTDC opened on Oct.13. Global Resources Exhibition was still divided into two sections just as the spring edition this year. The first section was mainly about the household, office and car electronics, security and electronic parts. What we pay more attention to like mobile phone, tablet PC, wearable smart devices, robots and unmanned aerial vehicles and other products were arranged to second section. So spectators of the Global Resources Exhibition are also a little scattered. Comparatively speaking, the electronic fair in Wan Chai was with more popularity.

For the chip vendor we focus on, it seems that only Actions Semiconductor attended the exhibition in the first section with just a few new products. But AllWinner Technology didn’t attend the show because that they think the influence of Hongkong show is much lower and they will no longer participate the show from this autumn. And the Amlogic Semiconductor didn’t show up in the first section and also it was not in the name list of the second one. Intel and Rockchip still attended the show in Wan Chai.

During Hong Kong Electronics Fair, Rockchip not only showed Chromebook based on RK3288 which has previously published and  smartphones and phablets based on SoFIA 3G-R, but also displayed series of Light Biz OS products, smart watches and car solutions based on RK6321.

The shipment of Rockchip SoFIA 3G-R is over 2KK
SoFIA 3G-R(C3230RK), first communication platform cooperatively developed by Rockchip and Intel, Atom x86 framework, 64bits Quad-core processor, has attracted extensive attention worldwide. Many manufacturers displayed their phablets powered by SoFIA 3G-R during Hong Kong Electronics Fair Spring Edition. 

In Fall, Rockchip showed much more smart phones and phablets based on SoFIA 3G-R solution, including the products from dozens of leading manufacturers like Weibu, iNet, MiKi, inCar, BND, Zediel, Sungworld, Skyworth etc. 

As of the end of September, the global shipments of phablets, based on SoFIA 3G-R(C3230RK) exceeded 2KK. The shipment in Oct. is expected to reach around 800K!

Most of global buyers take an interest in SoFIA 3G-R solution and think that it is very competitive in the market and has good growth prospects.

RK6321 Smart Watch Solution
Rockchip displayed its 3G smart watch solution based on RK6321 at the first time during Hong Kong Electronics Fair Fall Edition.

RK6321 is actually the same as XMM6321 published previously by Rockchip with intergrating the infineon 3G baseband, based on A5 dual core. It has been promoted in the market of smart phones and phablets before. But after some optimization, Rockchip generalize it to  smart watch market because of the characteristics of low power consumption. At present, the solution aims at the market of children’s watches and sports watches.

Children watch based on the RK6321 was displayed on the show

Rockchip product manager of wearable products introduced five major technological advantages of RK6321: lower power consumption, higher voice quality, more stable baseband, lower radiation and customized platform. It supports WCDMA and GSM with integrating WiFi, bluetooth, GPS and PMIC. It will become a quite competitive solution in wearable industry.

1. Lower power consumption and super endurance
Power consumption and endurance are the pain spots of wearable smart terminal devices. Different from the design of the traditional four matching chips, there is only two matching chips on the CPU of RK6321 3G SoC processor scheme, 6 in 1 highly integrated WiFi, Bluetooth, GPS, PMU and FM. It not only reduces the damage rate of production-manufacturing, but also makes the overall power consumption significantly decreasing. In addition, the basic frequency  of RK6321 is reduced from original 1.2GHz to 400MHz with the supporting system being simplified, which makes the overall power consumption significantly much lower.

The data shows that in RK6321 3G SoC processor smart watch solution,
a variety of patterns and technical indicators possess obvious technological advantages.

2. Higher quality of voice noise reduction techology + dual MIC design

Limited by background noise, other human voice interference, echo, reverberation and multiple complex factors, the tone quality of traditional smart watch products is poor. RK6321 3G SoC processor solution adopts unique voiceprint noise reduction technology and double MIC design, selects valid data from the complex sound environment according to the voice characteristics of users, comparing with traditional noise reduction technology, RK6321, makes tone quality quality revolutionary promotion. 

3.  More reliable baseband technology
RK6321 3G SoC processor solution adopts intel Baseband (original Infineon). The stability, compatibility and quality of Baseband technology are more reliable. The Baseband technology has passed the certification and has been widely used in the vast majority of countries, which helps those smart watches powered by RK6321 3G SoC competitively enter global market.

4. 3G Platform with Lower Radiation
RK6321 3G SoC processor solution supports Unicom 3G and GSM. Compared with the technology advantages of 2G, lower radiation and higher-speed communication ability make the security of RK6321 better. According to the test data, the transient radiation of RK6321 3G SoC processor solution is 200 to 2000 times lower than the smart watches of 2G scheme sold in the current market. Especially for children watch products, higher security and lower radiation values can make them easier to enter the market.

5. Customized platform for customers
Rockchip has carried out in-depth customizing based on Android, cut off part of the services for surplus smart watches, software packages, drive and so on, and streamline the function of Android. At the same time, it adds some necessary functions for smart watches, which greatly reduces the difficulty of the secondary development, shortens the development cycle and increases the stability of products.

Light Office OS
At the end of August in this year, Rockchip launched Light Office OS ,a system based on Android 5.1 and can be deeply customized system. It transfers Android 5.1 from entertainment to business, which adapts to the needs of mobile work and industry development. The system is positioned on light biz and focusing on education and industrial application market which can efficiently improve work efficiency. It can also help customers to smoothly pass the certification of Google GMS. 

In the show, Rockchip displayed various kinds of products based on Light Office OS:

2in1 tablet powered by RK3288 quad-core solution and  Light Office OS

MiniPC product with Light Office OS is based on RK3288 quad-core solution,
which can achieve light office by connecting monitor, keyboard and mouse.

a tablet supports digital pen ,based on RK3288 quad-core program and Light Office OS

Five major features make Android* system applicable to office:
1. Light Office OS can be easily switch two different system and CTS passed.
2. It can realize the self-suitable scaling on smart phones and tablets. Apps on tablet supports 3-level scaling while the mobile phone App supports the mobile phone window mode display.
3. Multitasking available. Can arbitrarily resize the window, and can drag multiple windows. In addition, all windows can suspend on the desktop at the same time.
4. It supports Microsoft Office and Kingsoft WPS kit.
5. Keyboard and mouse can be adapted with each other intelligently. Some commonly used functions of the right mouse bottom such as copy, paste, delete, etc., can be easily achieved. On the keyboard, some hotkeys such as Ctrl + C / + V / + X / + A, Alt + Tab etc. can be used as PC, and work more effciently.
At present, light office has become a trend, but Android system is still mainly for entertainment. Rockchip Light Biz OS is meaningful and that Rockchip introduces Light Office OS with more office properties makes sense, which also brings some new highlights for the growing homogenization of the Android tablet. According to reports, both RK3288 and RK3368 can support Light Office OS and all those manufacturers applying the two-chip solutions can use it for free.

Products based RKi6000 and NanoD
During Hong Kong Electronics Fair Spring Edition, Rockchip introduced the low-power chip NanoD supporting HiFi.

On the fall exhibition, Rockchip displayed HiFi multimedia products based on NanoD again. But this time, NanoD was showed together with RKi6000 on the hottest IoT booth, which was released during Computex this year.

This was “Wireless Home Theater Solution” showed by Rockchip this year.
The tablet was a display device with dual-channel speaker,
and there were two WiFi speakers on both sides, which could connect with the tablet,
thus achieving four channels. Both two WiFi speakers were based on NanoD and RKi6000 solution.

Onsite test: RKi6000’s peak current was about 22mA.

HiFi player based on NanD program was also adopted  RKi6000 solution. You can enjoy music online.

Car solution
Since last year, some automotive products such as the tachograph, smart reversing rearview mirror are very popular. At the same time, the In-Vehical Navigation has began to be used in the car.
In June this year, Shenzhen Zhonghong Technology developed a new generation of intelligent vehicle information system terminal platform based on Rockchip PX2 solution and it has been successfully applied to China Mobile 4G LTE smart car and Ali YunOS smart car machine project. PX2 is the chip platform designed by Rockchip for vehicle system, and the chip adopts ARM Cortex-A9 dual-core structure.

In-Vehical Navigation based on Rockchip PX2 solution is showed by Rockchip this year.

According to the introduction of Rockchip product manager, car manufacturers like Changan, Geely begun to use PX2 car solution, and in the future, they may introduce some new products to the market.

In addition, Rockchip also introduced a car product based on the latest PX3 solution focusing on the automotive market.

This car machine was based on Rockchip PX3 solution (1.4GHz A9 quad-core,
and the GPU is Mali400 MP4), with an 15-inch screen and Android 4.4.4 system, whose resolution is 1024 × 768 pixels.


However, WinCE system is still the mainstream system in vehical market.Only a few car manufacturers start to use Android system, which is mainly because of the high requirements of the security and stability from manufacturers. Even is the cars are equipped with Android system, they still need a long period of verification. Therefore, it is easier to install the systemin finished products.

Smart reversing rearview mirror based on PX3 solution presented by Rockchip.

According to reports, the smart reversing mirror based on Rockchip PX3 solution is competitive in the market, and compared to similar products, it is a dozen dollars cheaper. 

Virtual Reality products
During earlier exhibitions, Rockchip displayed smart glasses. But there was none in this exhibition. In Global Sourcing Fair, we saw one pair of head-mounted virtual reality glasses based on Rockchip RK3288 on GAP booth.

This product was cooperated with Nanjing Rui Yue.
Users experienced a variety of games from the VR device and
manipulated it by the gamepad (connect to the device via Bluetooth).

Summary
From XMM6321 launching to introducing SoFIA 3G-R with Intel , Rockchip has successfully entered the phone and phablet market. In April this year, NanoD was launched while in June RKi6000 WiFi solution was introduced. Rockchip has entered IoT market because of these two solutions. Moreover, with the launching of Chromebook and Light office OS, original Android tablet and Android notebooks have beentransforming to  light office market. 

The launch of PX2 / PX3 also helps Rockchip entering automotive market. In addition, for popular market, such as smart watches and virtual reality products, Rockchip has also developed related solutions. So far, Rockchip has diversified its products, achieving a transition from the past situation of relying on tablet product excessively.
 

Pre: RK IoV Solution | SoFIA 3G-R Assists Car-mounted Devices with Upgraded Smart Reaview Mirror   Next:Rockchip & ADVAN announced Phablet mass production in Indonesia successfully