想成为苹果供应商？没那么简单

Cirrus Logic 成功进驻苹果(Apple)即将上市新产品的消息，无疑让同业们又羡又妒；在加入这个行列之前，让我们先思考几个问题：Cirrus Logic进驻Apple新产品，是取代了其它芯片公司吗(如Dialog Semiconductor)？Cirrus Logic的音频芯片是无可替代的特别吗？竞争对手若想把Cirrus Logic从苹果产品踢出来，能采取什么方法？ 手机用的音频芯片供应商当然不只有 Cirrus Logic 一家，其竞争对手包括了Dialog Semiconductor 、Wolfson Microelectronics 、Maxim以及TI；在这些厂商中，Dialog的芯片也跟Cirrus一样是Apple产品内的“常客”，不过非音频芯片、而是电源管理芯片。Dialog与Cirrus在Apple的数代产品中都占据一席之地。 在 此同时，Maxim被市场研究机构Forward Concepts总经理Will Strauss誉为“手机电源管理/音频芯片第一把交椅”；TI则紧追在Maxim之后(可能与大客户Nokia有关)。这两家芯片厂商虽然都强调其音频芯片的优越性能(高音频品质、低功耗)，他们的策略走向却稍有不同。 根据Strauss的观察，目前手机音频芯片设计的趋势是将放大器整合其中，而且大多数的手机产品都已经具备音频编解码功能(由DSP提供)；或是有的厂商会把音频芯片与电源管理单元整合在一起。他指 出，Cirrus应该就是把电源管理功能整合进音频芯片，才成功取代了Dialog在Apple产品中的地位。 对此，Cirrus音频产品部门销售总监Carl Alberty 在接受 EETimes美国版采访时却表示：“那并非我们的目标；我们所整合的是能最佳化音频组件电源管理的功能，并非系统级的电源管理方案。”至于 Dialog，则是出人意料地在自家电源管理芯片(PMIC)内，整合了音频功能。 Dialog从去年起就为Samsung 在中国市场推出的TD-SCDMA智能手机，提供系统级的电源管理方案与低功耗音频芯片；该公司最近宣布，其整合了音频功能的第二款电源管理芯片成功进 驻了Samsung锁定全球市场的智能手机平台。Dialog声称，其在单一封装内整合系统级电源管理功能以及低功耗D类音频电路的方案，能大幅节省功耗与电路板空间。 针对Dialog整合电源管理与音频功能的芯片方案，Cirrus的Alberty表示：“我们当然有关注该产品，但我们未看到它有足够的价值；有一些客户可能会喜欢那样的方案。也许称之为“the-jack-of-all-trades”(什么都会、但没有 一样是精通的)方案不甚公平，总之那并非我们的兴趣所在。”笔者帮他解释一下…意思就是，反正Apple就是没有采用。 另一家手机音频芯片供货商Wolfson，在6月时宣布其WM1811音频中枢芯片获得Samsung的Galaxy S III智能手机采用；该款芯片内含立体声编码器与三个数字音频接口。Wolfson也开发了一款更高阶的音频SoC WM5100 ，整合了噪声/回音消除DSP；该公司表示，为提升产品声音品质，有越来越多的手机与平板装置是将音频功能从应用处理器中独立出来。 有 这么多其它竞争对手都有看来不错的手机音频芯片方案，Cirrus的Alberty仍认为自家产品是无法取代的；他表示，除了以低功耗提供高品质音频，该 公司的音频芯片还在小体积的芯片内整合了包括电容、电阻、耳机与喇叭驱动器等等被动组件，最重要的是：“我们与客户之间拥有深厚的关系。”而且他们可立即 提供客户所需要的芯片设计。 Alberty表示，Cirrus持续努力最佳化音频解决方案的功耗，在芯片架构设计上的所有改变都必定是有所意义的；举例来说，该公司最近提出了一种改善智能型手机音量的方法，随着该类装置外观越来越薄，音箱(acoustic chamber)空间被压缩，使得喇叭的品质低落：“我们让音频芯片上的放大器能以比电池允许的更高电压运作，从而放大智能手机音量。” 而 无论是盲从地追随整合风潮，还是为音频芯片内的DSP核心开发更先进的算法，都不能保证任何一家音频芯片供货商取得不败地位，特别是当这些业者都得看大 客户的脸色时。有一个实际案例是，据今年稍早传出的消息，Apple本来打算取得智能手机噪声抑制/回音消除芯片供货商Audience的授权，将后者 技术整合A5 处理器，但又取消了这项交易。 当时Apple为何想把Audience的技术整合至A5，而不是用 Cirrus的音频芯片支持那些功能，值得玩味；但在当时没有分析师预料到Cirrus成功进驻Apple新产品。想尽办法挤下Cirrus抢进 Apple产品，是一件值得冒险的事吗？对此Semico分析师Rich Wawrzyniak不以为然，他认为要赢得Apple青睐，就得以更低价格提供更佳功能：“那可能是得不偿失的胜利。” 本文授权编译自EE Times，版权所有，谢绝转载 编译：Judith Cheng 参考英文原文：Replace Cirrus’ design slots in Apple? Fuhgeddaboudit!，by Junko Yoshida

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{pagination} Replace Cirrus’ design slots in Apple? Fuhgeddaboudit! Junko Yoshida Cirrus Logic’s big design wins with Apple’s upcoming products is, unquestionably, the envy of many in the electronics industry.But before climbing onto the Cirrus-envy bandwagon, let’s ask a few questions. NEW YORK -- Cirrus Logic’s big design wins with Apple’s upcoming products is, unquestionably, the envy of many in the electronics industry. But before climbing onto the Cirrus-envy bandwagon, let’s ask a few questions anyway: · Is Cirrus Logic expanding its design sockets in Apple’s new products at the expense of another chip company, like Dialog Semiconductor? · Are Cirrus Logic audio chips so special that there are no alternatives? · What would take for Cirrus Logic’s competitors to unseat Cirrus Logic’s socket in Apple? When it comes to audio chips for mobile phones, Cirrus Logic isn’t the only game in town. Cirrus Logic’s competitors include: Dialog Semiconductor; Wolfson Microelectronics; Maxim; and Texas Instruments. Among these vendors, Dialog has been as much an Apple captive as Cirrus. For Apple’s design sockets, Dialog has been picked for its power management chip, while Cirrus is Apple’s supplier of choice for its audio codec chip. The two companies have kept their design-in slots in Apple products for a couple of generations now. Meanwhile, Maxim is considered “the number one merchant market supplier of cellphone Power Management Unit/audio chips, slightly trailing Qualcomm,” according to Will Strauss, president of Forward Concepts, a market research firm based in Tempe, Ariz. Qualcomm is a captive supplier for its own cellphone chips. “TI is the number two in that merchant market (probably because of Nokia), only slightly behind Maxim,” he added. Although each vendor claims audio chip’s superiority (high audio quality at low power), their strategies tread slightly different paths. A general trend among audio ICs used in mobile handsets, however, is that “audio amplifiers are already included with audio chip; and most cellphones have implemented audio codecs (yes, including DSP capability); and they are integrating it on the same chip as power management units (PMUs),” observed Forward Concepts’ Strauss. Could Cirrus “unseat” Dialog? Strauss suggested that Cirrus, presumably, could add power management functions onto its own audio chip, paving the way to unseat Dialog in Apple’s design sockets. However, “That’s not our focus,” said Carl Alberty, director of marketing for Cirrus’ Audio Division in an interview with EE Times on Monday (August 6th). “We integrate features that intelligently optimize the power management of our [audio] device, but we don’t do a system-level power management,” he added. In contrast, Dialog is hanging its hat on the integration of audio into its own power management IC (PMIC). Dialog has been shipping since last year system-level power management and low-power audio ICs for Samsung’s TD-SCDMA based smartphones in China. Dialog recently announced that its second PMIC including integrated audio has won Samsung’s global Smartphone platform design socket. Dialog attributes its success to the company’s ability to combine “in a single package or monolithically integrating, highly complex system power management functionality that is fully configurable for multiple platforms, together with low power class D audio.” The upshot for Dialog’s solution is “significant power and board space savings,” while delivering the highest quality audio for Samsung’s new smartphones, according to the company. Cirrus, whose largest customer is Apple, demurs from that view. Asked about Dialog’s PMIC with integrated audio, Alberty said, “We absolutely looked at it, but we are not seeing enough value in it.” He added, “There is a class of customers who may prefer that. Calling it ‘the-jack-of-all-trades approach’ may not be fair to [Dialog], but it isn’t what we are interested in.” Translation: Apple says, “No.” Are audio chips interchangeable? Meanwhile, Forward Concepts’ Strauss noted that Wolfson, which made its name as the lowest-power audio D/A chips for the cellphone market, has dominated that narrow segment. But the company is beefing up its capabilities. Wolfson, in late June, announced that its WM1811 audio hub IC is being used in Samsung’s Galaxy S III smart phones. While that chip is a stereo codec with three digital audio interfaces, Wolfson also developed a much more ambitious audio system-on-a-chip, designated as WM5100 -- integrated with noise/echo-cancelling DSP. With the WM5100, the company is offering what used to be several different chips – an audio hub, a separate DSP, a noise cancellation IC – in one chip. Wolfson’s audio SoCs come from an idea that “audio components in mobile phones and tablet PCs are increasingly becoming dis-integrated from the application processor,” according to the company. While that may be so, decisions on how much more features an audio chip in a smartphone should pack in aren't made by chip vendors alone. Are any of these audio chips from different suppliers interchangeable? “Absolutely not,” said Cirrus’ Alberty. Cirrus takes pride in offering high-quality audio at lowest power, “without compromising the performance, he noted. The company also integrates into its audio chip numerous components like capacitors, resisters, headphone and speaker drivers and a host of passive components, to deliver “super small form factor.” But in the end, what makes Cirrus’ chip not interchangeable with others comes down to one thing: “the depth of the relationship we have with our customers,” said Alberty. “You need to be able to execute [the plan and the technology] to the day” – meaning delivering a new chip that works, on the day it promised, not a day later. Alberty said Cirrus is constantly looking at ways to optimize the power consumption of its audio solution. They look at blocks around its audio IC, they get rid of things on the audio chip, partition or sequence the tasks on the chip differently. But all these changes must result in meaningful improvements, he added. For instance, Cirrus recently talked about a way to improve the volume of a smartphone. As a smartphone gets thinner and thinner, the acoustic chamber is getting squeezed, thus deteriorating the quality of its speaker. “We are enabling an amplifier on our audio chip to run at higher voltage than the battery allows. It lets the smartphone offer louder expression.” Apple-Audience However, either blindly following the integration path or running more advanced algorithms on the DSP core inside the audio chip is not exactly a sure way to give any audio chip supplier a competitive edge, especially when the supplier waits at the beck and call of its biggest customer. The case in point is Apple’s licensing of Audience, a leading supplier of noise suppression and echo cancellation chips in the smartphone market. Linley Gwennap at the Linley Group wrote earlier this year that Apple cut a deal with Audience to integrate Audience’s noise-reduction custom logic directly into Apple’s own A5 processor, which is used in the iPhone 4S. It’s interesting that Apple decided to include Audience’s technology on the A5 processor, instead of running it on Cirrus Logic’s audio chip. No analysts go so far as predicting that Cirrus’ deal with Apple is sealed. But asked whether it is worth the trouble for anyone to go out of its way to unseat Cirrus in Apple’s products, Rich Wawrzyniak, senior analyst at Semico Research, said: “Probably not.” Whie Wawrzyniak does not believe Cirrus’ audio chip is terribly complex, he believes that gunning for Apple’s sockets (‘when Cirrus already has them’) could require a lot of resources. “You need to come up with something much better at a lower price.” A win so costly could turn out to be a Pyrrhic victory.