news

한어Русский языкEnglishFrançaisIndonesianSanskrit日本語DeutschPortuguêsΕλληνικάespañolItalianoSuomalainenLatina

Author: Taylor, Editor: Xiaoshimei

On July 24, A-share 6G concept stocks performed strongly, Kingsignal hit the 20cm daily limit, Sega Technology closed the board, and companies such as Dingtong Technology, Shanghai Hugong, and Tongyu Communications strengthened.

Compared with 5G, the technical indicators of 6G can be called a leap forward upgrade. The operating speed can reach the TB level, and the delay rate is only microseconds (one millionth of a second). It not only increases the security of communications, but also fully integrates the coverage of the earth, sky and air.

"1G blank, 2G following, 3G breakthrough, 4G running parallel, 5G surpassing", my country is in the leading position in 6G patent technology.

According to a survey in Japan, in nine core technology fields including communication technology, quantum technology, base stations and artificial intelligence, China accounts for 40.3% of the number of 6G patents, ranking first in the world, ahead of the United States (35.2%), Japan (9.9%) and Europe (8.9%).

Based on the unique advantages of 6G, its technological trends focus on space-ground integration technology, hyper-dimensional antenna technology and terahertz band.

The white paper released by the 6G research group of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology pointed out that 6G will present characteristics such as immersion, intelligence, and globalization, creating eight application scenarios: immersive cloud XR, holographic communication, sensory interconnection, intelligent interaction, communication perception, inclusive intelligence, digital twins and global coverage.

The huge application scenarios have given rise to an even larger market scale. According to China Mobile's forecast, by 2025, 5G will drive the domestic market scale to nearly 10 trillion yuan, and 6G will ignite an even larger market after its commercial use.

6G aims to solve the problem of ubiquitous intelligent connectivity, so the current mobile communication infrastructure will face reconstruction.

From 5G to 6G, the leapfrog evolution of technology will drive the gradual industrialization of various cutting-edge technologies and create huge investment opportunities.

The 14th Five-Year Plan for the digital economy points out that it is necessary to accelerate the layout of satellite communication networks and promote the construction of satellite Internet. It can be foreseen that the layout of satellite Internet will be accelerated in the coming period.

Since the 1980s, humans have begun to explore global communications through launching satellites. The "Iridium Project" jointly launched by Iridium and Motorola and the "Global Communication" initiated by Laura and Qualcomm were both products of that era, but they all ended in failure in the end.

Since 2014, Musk's SpaceX and OneWeb, led by Indian telecom tycoon Sunil Mittal, have both begun to move towards space. In the "Starlink Project", SpaceX plans to launch 42,000 satellites to achieve global network coverage.

Musk previously tweeted that 1,469 Starlink satellites are in operation and the laser link will be activated soon.

Starlink’s current trial speed has exceeded 200Mbps, which is faster than 95% of broadband in the United States and twice as fast as 5G.

But this is still far from the level of 6G. The network latency of 6G is in microseconds, while Starlink's current latency is between 20 milliseconds and 40 milliseconds.

Satellites are a low-capacity way to access the Internet. To achieve global coverage, more satellites need to be launched to maintain high Internet speeds. This is why Musk plans to launch 42,000 satellites.

The competition of future mobile communication technology has moved from the ground to space. Many Chinese companies have begun to make plans. my country Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation and China Aerospace Science and Industry Corporation have respectively put forward the "Hongyan Constellation" and "Hongyun Project" plans and launched test satellites.

According to the plan, the "Hongyan Constellation" will launch more than 300 low-orbit satellites, the "Hongyun Project" will launch 156 satellites, and together with other companies, the number of launches during the "14th Five-Year Plan" period will be as high as 2,198.

According to the Satellite Industry Association of the United States, the annual growth rate of global satellite industry revenue remained at about 3% from 2015 to 2018, reaching US$277.4 billion in 2018. CCID think tank predicts that by 2030, the scale of my country's satellite Internet market will accelerate to the level of 100 billion yuan.

As satellite Internet is still in its infancy, upstream industries such as satellite manufacturing, satellite launch, ground equipment and satellite operations will be the first to benefit.

In the satellite industry chain, satellite launch, satellite manufacturing, ground equipment and operation service revenue accounted for 2.24%, 7.03%, 45.13% and 45.6% respectively, and operation and maintenance services are the most valuable industry branch. However, due to the rapid expansion of the entire market pie, leading companies in each sector have opportunities.

In April 2021, China Satellite Network Group ("StarNet Group") was officially established, marking the official departure of the "national team" and the acceleration of my country's satellite Internet industry.

Chengchang Technology, a subsidiary of HeRuiTai (002402.SZ), specializes in T/R microwave millimeter wave RF chips. It is the only private enterprise in China that can undertake large-scale national launch missions. Its products have been used in major projects such as Beidou-2 navigation and satellite communications.

T/R chips are mainly used in radars, especially phased array radars. The United States has fully upgraded the F-15C, F-15E, and F-18E fighters in service to active phased array radars, and the F22 and F35 must be equipped with them. A single phased array system in the THAAD anti-missile system has as many as tens of thousands of T/R components. As a core component, T/R chips are estimated to account for 40%-50% of the cost of radars, which shows their importance.

Satellite T/R components have higher performance requirements, and more than 90% of Chengchang Technology's revenue comes from satellite-borne business. Guojin Securities estimates that by 2025, the T/R chip market will increase to 82.3 billion yuan, of which low-orbit satellites will account for 15 billion yuan.

Due to the extremely high industry barriers, in addition to Chengchang Technology, the only domestic companies that have mastered phased array T/R chips include China Electronics Technology Group Corporation's 13th and 55th Institutes, with annual shipments of 1.0-1.5 billion pieces, while Chengchang Technology can only produce hundreds of thousands, with a relatively low market share.

From 2018 to 2020, Chengchang Technology achieved revenue of RMB 99.8478 million, RMB 133 million and RMB 175 million, and non-net profit of RMB 49 million, RMB 64 million and RMB 81 million, showing a rapid growth trend.

With the explosion of downstream market demand, as one of the very few "seed players" in my country and a "scarce target" in the capital market, Chengchang Technology has great potential.

The ratio of aerospace input to output is 1:10, and satellite Internet can drive the downstream application market size to over 1 trillion yuan. Therefore, there is a vast space for satellite application and operation services.

Based on the accelerated implementation of the Beidou industry, Beidou Starcom (002151.SZ) has gradually emerged from the past haze. Its business involves the upstream, midstream and downstream of the Beidou industry, and the application of high-precision satellite positioning chips in surveying and mapping, drones and agricultural machinery. The satellite navigation business had revenue of 770 million yuan in the first half of 2021, a year-on-year increase of 24.11%; the intelligent connected car business achieved revenue of 666 million yuan, a year-on-year increase of 55%. With the mass production of the next generation of core chips and the full completion of the Beidou-3 system, performance is expected to continue to increase.

Secondly, China Satellite, which is mainly engaged in satellite manufacturing and application, and China Satellite Communications, which operates the satellite space segment, under the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation, will benefit from the satellite Internet strategy.

Terahertz communication is a transition from electronics to photonics, which effectively solves the dilemma of increasingly scarce frequency band resources. It is considered to be the core communication technology of the 6G era.

In June 2020, a satellite named "University of Electronic Science and Technology" was successfully launched in Taiyuan. It will conduct terahertz communication technology experiments in space and is called "the world's first 6G experimental satellite."

Recently, my country has set the world record for the highest real-time transmission of terahertz wireless communications, demonstrating its leading position in this field.

In addition to mobile communications, terahertz is also widely used in large-scale security equipment, precision medical equipment, military radar and other fields.

China Unicom has established a terahertz joint innovation center; Tianyin Electromechanical and its subsidiary Huaqing Ruida have undertaken a terahertz communication technology experimental project for a certain unit of the People's Liberation Army and have successfully delivered it. It is one of the few listed companies that has already achieved results.

From 5G to 6G, ultra-large-scale antenna technology continues to upgrade. Ultra-large-scale smart antennas will be able to be applied to high-speed scenarios such as high-speed railways and airplanes, urban macro coverage, precise positioning and other fields, to achieve borderless links under full-area coverage.

Among them, intelligent metasurfaces (RIS) and electromagnetic wave angular kinetic energy are two major research directions. Intelligent metasurfaces can make antennas smarter and achieve large-scale use of low-cost power consumption by reconstructing the propagation environment; electromagnetic wave angular kinetic energy can improve spectrum efficiency without consuming additional spectrum and time.

The IMT-2030 (6G) Promotion Group of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology has conducted relevant technical research and development with China Mobile, China Telecom, ZTE, Huawei, and Unisoc. ZTE has teamed up with China Unicom to complete the industry's first technical test of intelligent metasurface reflective panels in 5G medium frequency.

However, the research and development of ultra-large-scale antenna technology is still in the theoretical certification and experimental stage, and the industrial implementation still faces many uncertainties, and it is far from contributing to the performance of related companies.

In comparison, satellite Internet in the 6G industry is the premise and cornerstone for the implementation of the industry. It has now entered the stage of accelerated promotion. Compared with terahertz and hyper-dimensional antennas, it deserves more attention.

Whenever a new generation of mobile communications is launched for commercial use, research on the next generation of mobile communications has already begun. At this point in time, the 6G era, which will leverage a scale of over 10 trillion, is accelerating.

As the commanding heights of the next generation information industry, this is another "war" that cannot be lost.

Disclaimer

The content of this article related to listed companies is the author’s personal analysis and judgment based on the information disclosed by listed companies in accordance with their legal obligations (including but not limited to interim announcements, regular reports and official interactive platforms, etc.); the information or opinions in the article do not constitute any investment or other business advice, and Market Value Observation shall not bear any responsibility for any actions arising from the adoption of this article.