It turns out there are so many types of chips!

Chip is a semiconductor component products, that is, the semiconductor as raw materials, integrated circuits for design, manufacturing, packaging and testing, the physical product.

Chip is the core of modern industrial products and soul, as little as mobile phones and computers, as big as aircraft and rockets, can not be separated from the chip support.

For example, a mobile phone, mobile phone touch screen need to have a touch chip, storage information need to have a storage chip, to achieve the communication function to have a baseband chip, radio frequency chip, bluetooth chip, want to take good-looking photos need to be GPU ...... a mobile phone in the chip add up to more than 100.

So the question is, with so many chips, how do you actually categorise them?

First, the processing of signal points

Signals are divided into analogue and digital signals, digital chip is to deal with digital signals, such as CPU, logic circuits, etc.; analogue chip is to deal with analogue signals, such as operational amplifiers, linear voltage regulators, reference voltage sources.

Most of today's chips are both digital and analogue, a chip in the end belongs to which class of products is no absolute standard, usually based on the core function of the chip to distinguish.

Second, according to the scene

1, data centre level chip: mainly used in cloud computing data centre: including CPU, GPU, memory, storage controller, solid state hard disk, etc., the main requirements of high performance, high stability, high reliability.

2, consumer products level chip: currently the most widely used, the highest market share of the chip, applied to the daily use of computers, mobile phones and other products.

3, industrial product level chip: industrial products for a long time in very high / low temperature, high humidity, strong salt spray and electromagnetic radiation of the harsh environment, the use of the environment is more demanding, so the industrial chip must have stability, high reliability and high security, and have a long service life (power, for example, the requirements of the industrial chip application failure rate.

4, automotive electronics level chip: mainly on the temperature environment requirements are strict, to be used in a wider range of temperatures.

5, military and defence level chip: with the defence of the military industry related to the chip, such as satellite communications, guidance, precision navigation, etc..

Third, according to the process process

Above 90nm (including 90nm, 128nm and above), 60nm, 45nm, 28nm, 14nm, 12nm, 7nm, 7nm and below. Nowadays, the so-called advanced process chips mainly refer to the following 12nm, such as 12nm, 9nm, 7nm, 5nm, and even 3nm.

Fourth, according to the functional categories

1, processor class: mainly in the system to undertake specific calculations, control tasks of the chip, such as MCU, CPU, GPU, NPU and so on.

2, storage class: mainly in the system to assume the data storage chip, as well as some storage controller chip, such as DRAM, SRAM, Flash, etc..

3, communication (wired, wireless): mainly in the system to assume the communication function of the chip, such as some Ethernet chips, switching chips, wide-area and local area network, point-to-point and self-assembling network chips, as well as auxiliary communication filtering, amplification, power and other devices can belong to this category, the general public usually know of the WiFi, Bluetooth, 5G baseband, GPS, NB-IoT, NIC, switch, etc. can be divided into this category. can be divided into this category.

4, interaction class: in the system is mainly responsible for the collection of information, presentation and interaction of the chip, this category contains a very wide range, such as the general sense of the sensor, input and output devices, a part of the signal processing chip and so on. The public is usually familiar with the microphone, display chips, motion sensors, part of the AD / DA chip, can be classified into this category.

5, power management and power devices: electronic systems, the need to provide a constant flow of electricity to maintain the main part of the system to undertake this function can be classified as this category, such as PMIC, DC-DC, AC-DC, LDO and IGBT can be classified into this category.

6, resistance and capacitance devices, etc.: In addition to bear the main task of the chip, in a system, there is the whole circuit to play a practical role in regulating the resistance, capacitance, etc.. Under certain circumstances, passive devices (passive components) can also be classified into this category.

In addition to the above classification methods, they can also be classified as sensors, RF, power class devices, etc. according to chip characteristics.