Recently, Gico Micro successfully held a commissioning ceremony at the Lingang plant, marking the company's formal transformation into a Fab-lite model. At the same time, the company also held a new product release and CEO exchange meeting, presenting the company's latest masterpiece in the high-end field to the market.

at the press conference, geco micro showed the market's first single-chip 50MP product GC50E0, the main camera product, and the big bottom 50MP product GC50B2 based on 1.0μm pixels.

the high-pixel new product introduced by gekewei at this conference marks a brand-new starting point. 50MP products, especially large-scale 50MP products, are very critical. the release of related products marks that domestic CIS representative enterprises will start to aim at the medium and high-end and flagship machine main shooting fields in the second half of 2023.

The most critical 50 million pixel products

Although domestic CIS manufacturers have firmly occupied the first place in terms of shipments, the market dominance is still mainly monopolized by foreign manufacturers, and domestic products are still dominated by low-end products. Take Gekewei as an example. Although its sales volume is the top of the global mobile phone CIS sales, from the perspective of sales, it only accounts for about 5% of the global market. At the same time, Sony is still the most important player in the market. In 2022, Sony will account for 54% of the total CIS share of mobile phones in terms of sales.

Domestic manufacturers to break through, it is necessary to advance to the high-end market. To challenge foreign manufacturers in the high-end market, the key lies in 50MP products.

although there are two different development routes in the CIS field, judging from the overall configuration of each model, the configuration of 48MP/50MP and above has become the standard for the main camera of each flagship model, and the penetration rate in the middle and low-end models is increasing. In the second half of the year, mobile phone brands released new products intensively. Among them, Apple's iPhone 15 PRO max and iPhone 15 adopted 48MP products, while Huawei's newly released Mate 60 Pro and Mate X5 adopted 50MP products. The main camera of Android phones is mainly 50MP, and some high-end flagship machines such as Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra and Glory 90 Pro have more than 0.2 billion pixels.

Figure: Flagship models are dominated by 50MP

according to IDC's data, 48MP-64MP accounted for more than 60% of the main cameras in the Chinese market in April this year, while 64MP-108MP accounted for about 10.0. This means that the shipments of 48MP-64MP main camera are already twice that of products below 48MP. In terms of price, although the price is affected by market supply and demand fluctuations, and the prices of different brands and different specifications are also different, it is certain that the price of 48MP-64MP products is much higher than that of products below 48MP. According to TSR and Yole's 2020 data, the industry unit price of 48MP products is about $6, while the unit price of 64MP products is about $9; while the average selling price of low-end CIS products is less than $1. It can be seen that the size of the high-end CIS market may be dozens of times the size of the low-end product market.

Figure: Trend of Shipment Proportion of Each Pixel Strip for Low-end and Mid-end Models

Source: IDC, CICC Research

In addition, it is worth noting that 50MP may become the "sweet node" of the CIS market ".

Although the logic chip has been pursuing the continuous shortening of the line width, the logic chip has a famous "sweet node"-28nm. Years of research and development and practical application have made 28nm a relatively mature and stable state. Its process technology and equipment have been fully optimized and improved, with high production efficiency, and excellent reliability and repeatability. As a result, 28nm is one of the most "long-lived" nodes.

Although the mobile phone industry continues to refresh the highest pixel record, CIS pixels seem to gradually appear similar longevity node characteristics. Based on market research, CICC made it clear in the report: "We believe that in the future, the rear-mounted camera of most mobile phones may remain at 50MP,64MP or gradually withdraw from the historical stage." Founder Securities Zheng Zhenxiang team also believes that 64MP and 100 million pixel products have not become the mainstream of the high-end CIS market. Mainstream high-end products do not have unlimited rise in pixels, but the market share of 64MP products is gradually being replaced by the more cost-effective 50MP.

It can be seen that 50MP is very important at this stage and will also occupy an important position in the future. Whether it can break through 50MP has played a key role in conquering the high-end CIS market. The two 50MP products launched by Gekewei this time officially announced that they have conquered this key node and also marked an extremely important step in the company's high-end journey.

Hand over the high-end new answer sheet

Currently, the upgrade of smartphone CIS presents two parallel development paths: small bottom, high resolution and large bottom size. In terms of high-resolution technology, by increasing the number of pixels in the image sensor, higher detail and clarity of the image are achieved; while the outsole technology focuses on increasing the physical size of each pixel to enhance light capture. This approach helps to improve image performance in low light environments, reduce noise, and improve signal dynamic range.

The two latest 50MP high-end products released by Geco Micro just represent the innovation of these two different paths:

1. small bottom and high resolution path: GC50E0 is a 50MP product based on 0.7μm platform and is the first single chip 50 million pixel product on the market;

2, big bottom, large size path: GC50B2 is a 50MP product that uses 1.0um pixels to realize 1/1.56 "big bottom. It is reported that GC50B2 supports 4k video shooting and is matched with Geke Micro DAG high dynamic technology to realize low power consumption and high dynamic output in preview, photographing and video recording. At the same time, it supports on-chip phase focusing, which can quickly focus the subject and capture more accurately.

For a long time, there has been a saying that has been widely circulated in the industry: "The bottom level kills people". The outsole is critical to improving image quality because a larger light-sensitive area can capture more light, allowing a larger aperture to be used, resulting in more accurate color, dynamics, and detail. Therefore, although the "big bottom" is higher in price, it is favored by high-end equipment such as flagship models. Statistics show that high-end models generally choose 50MP image sensors equipped with outsole.

In the past, due to extremely high technical barriers, Sony almost monopolized the field of outsole sensors, occupying a dominant position in this segment of the high-end market. However, with the technological breakthroughs of domestic manufacturers such as Geke Micro, this pattern may soon change.

Although these two 50MP high-end products use different technology paths, Gico Micro uses a single-chip architecture. This unique chip structure is independently developed by the company and is significantly different from the mainstream stack structure. The stack structure was introduced by Sony in 2012. This means that for more than a decade, the mainstream CIS structure has not undergone disruptive changes. In a stacked configuration, pixels and signal processing circuitry are stacked in the vertical direction to improve sensor performance and compactness. However, this also leads to problems such as high cost, large thermal noise, and low yield.

To solve these problems, Gico Micro introduced a single-chip architecture. CICC Research Institute pointed out that the monolithic architecture can solve the above-mentioned problems of stacking to a certain extent, reducing the area of the logic area while controlling heat generation and power consumption, and reducing the loss of yield.

gecco micro previously disclosed in the announcement the company's plans on the single chip technology path, including the introduction of 50 million, 64 million, 108 million and other higher pixel specifications based on high pixel single chip integration technology.

In the past, the market was worried about whether this breakthrough structure would be highly malleable and could be widely used in more products. The introduction of Geco micro single chip outsole 50MP products strongly responded to this doubt. At the exchange meeting, Zhao Lixin, chairman and CEO of Gekewei, said: "(on a single chip structure), at least 0.1 billion pixels can be done." From small size to large size, from 32 million pixels to 5000 pixels, on a single chip structure, the product can expand well on both paths of small bottom high resolution and large bottom large size.

Towards a New Peak of $3 billion

The launch of the 50MP product marks a new beginning on the company's high-end road, however, it may only be one step in the company's core technology productization.

Zhao Lixin said at the exchange meeting: "Our current business goal is to closely follow customer needs, realize the productization of core technologies, and cross the $3 billion mark."

In 2022, the company's revenue will decline slightly, but this is due to the company's decisive strategic contraction in response to the market decline. Despite this, the company still maintains the world's first mobile phone CIS shipments. Zhao Lixin explained, "The big surplus after the big shortage (in the industry) in 2022, but we are not involved in the business of losing money, so we still make money. The company's high-end products should achieve $3 billion in the near future after they come out."

At present, the company is already a supplier of Korean brands and has been recognized by customers through continuous technological innovation. It is not difficult to find from many market research that this Korean brand is Samsung. For the time being, Geco Micro is the only CIS manufacturer in China that can supply Samsung on a large scale. Samsung is primarily focused on the small pixel route, and it remains to be seen whether Gico Micro can become a supplier of its outsole products.

However, what is certain is that the company's high-end road is gradually clear. In addition to conquering the most critical pixel "sweet node", the company is also gradually landing a new layout. The company is actively entering the field of AMOLED new display driver chips. Although its shipment volume may be relatively low, its potential will far exceed that of LCD display driver chips due to its higher unit price.

in addition, according to the head of the CIS division of the non-mobile phone in geco, in 2024, geco will launch the first product truly developed in accordance with the car regulations. "In the automotive electronics market, we will continue to adhere to the previous practice, gradually develop from low-end to high-end, and move forward steadily." The person in charge said, "I believe that in the next few years, our front-mounted products will emerge in large numbers. In addition, the digital division will not only be limited to the front-mounted field, but we also plan to expand into industrial products and other fields."

The high-end layout is supported by the Fab-lite mode, which will greatly increase the speed of advancement. Zhao Lixin said, "The strategic goal of Fabless's transformation to Fab-lite has been successfully achieved, and Gecweiwei will use this as the basis to strive to achieve the new strategy." The integration of design and manufacturing has obvious advantages, which is conducive to the company's independent innovation in chip design to manufacturing process, so as to form a full set of highly competitive independent intellectual property rights. This will also greatly improve the R & D efficiency of Gecowire and provide stronger support for the company's innovation and development.

Zhao Lixin concluded: "The company is currently in the best business situation in its 20 years of existence." This business situation is not only due to the company's geography and people, but also benefited from the timing-predicting the exit of overseas friends in the low-end market and the high-end CIS market to usher in a price increase cycle. Samsung has issued a CIS price increase notice to customers, and will officially start the price increase in the first quarter of next year, and this price increase is mainly concentrated on products with specifications above 32MP. Looking back at history, every price hike will accelerate the process of domestic substitution.

In the past years, Gico has been working silently. The wind finally came.