MediaTek plans to snatch a piece of the Windows PC market with Arm processors

MediaTek executives have announced plans to enter the PC market by offering powerful Arm processors there, and thus compete with Qualcomm, which hatches similar plans for its Snapdragon platform.
The chip maker has not yet released details of its plans, however.image source: mediatek.comMediaTek has said it sees new growth opportunities in the PC market, which has an annual turnover of $40 billion.
MediaTek has already started conquering this segment with its Kompanio chipsets, which include radio modules for connecting to 5G, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, as well as display controllers.
Vince Hu, MediaTek's VP of corporate affairs, said the company is going to move from \"low power to high power space\", applying solutions that have already proven themselves in the smartphone segment to the PC market, while the company intends to develop CPUs and GPUs internally, rather than take over players with a ready-made portfolio, as Qualcomm did when it bought Nuvia.
By the way, Qualcomm thereby incurred the wrath of Arm - the British developer has filed a lawsuit against the American partner, claiming that after the absorption license Nuvia became invalid.
MediaTek, meanwhile, has already made its first steps in the PC market by launching the Kompanio family of chipsets designed for Chromebooks.
The latest are the Kompanio 520 and 528 platforms announced last week, aimed at entry-level machines.The PC sector at the Taiwanese company will be overseen by Adam King, vice president and general manager of client computing at MediaTek - he worked at Intel and oversaw mobile Core chips from 4th to 6th generations.
Mr.
King also did not provide details, but noted that the company is confident in the long-term potential of Windows on Arm, but to implement the strategy will have to do a lot of work and overcome many barriers.

MediaTek will reduce dependence on TSMC by outsourcing chip production to Intel and GlobalFoundries

Reducing dependence on TSMC and its Taiwanese facilities will be an important trend for MediaTek in coming years, as CEO of this mobile processor developer, Rick Tsai, made clear.
The company's CEO explained that the main factor behind this decision will be geographical diversification, as over-reliance on Taiwan concerns not only the company, but also its customers.
Large consumers of semiconductor products, according to Mr.
Tsai, will begin to require chip suppliers to use multiple sources of production: Taiwan will be combined with the U.S.
or Europe.
MediaTek is preparing for the emergence of such requirements and is gradually expanding the geography of its chips production, not just limited to Taiwan.As over time, MediaTek expects to increase the volume of sales of its chips in the U.S.
market, then the localization of production, it is ready to pay close attention.
When TSMC's chip contract manufacturing facility in Arizona will start operating, MediaTek hopes to become its customer.
In addition, the production of processors of this brand will be engaged in GlobalFoundries, which has enterprises in New York State and Singapore.
However, in this case we are talking about the use of not the most advanced lithography, but it is more important to diversify sources.Intel, which has repeatedly reported on cooperation with MediaTek, from the second half of 2024, as explained by Rick Tsai, will provide it with chips, which will be produced by Intel 16 technology in the enterprise in Ireland.
These components will find use in TVs and Wi-Fi routers, and do not require advanced lithography to produce them either.
This market segment is quite large, so the company considers cooperation with Intel in all seriousness.
The head of MediaTek personally observes progress in this area on an almost monthly basis.

MediaTek unveiled the 5G modem T800, Kompanio 520 and 528 processors for Chromebooks and Pentonic 1000 for smart TVs

Taiwan's MediaTek unveiled various chips designed for Internet of Things devices, Chromebooks and smart TVs that will appear as part of various products in 2023.
Image source: mediatek.com5G modem MediaTek T800 is designed for gadgets other than smartphones - that is, for Internet of Things devices.
It supports a wide range of bands, including millimeter and sub 6 GHz.
The maximum theoretical speed on the incoming channel is 7.9 Gbps and 4.2 Gbps on the outgoing channel, which exceeds the actual speed of today's networks.
The modem supports simultaneous operation of two SIM cards.
The T800 is manufactured using 4nm process technology, increasing battery life on end devices.The MediaTek Kompanio 520 and 528 chipsets are designed for entry-level Chromebooks.
Here 8-core processors are used: 2 Arm Cortex-A76 cores and 6 Cortex-A55 cores.
The A55 cores in both cases run at 2.0 GHz, while on the Kompanio 520 performance A76 have the same 2.0 GHz, and on the Kompanio 528 they are overclocked to 2.2 GHz - no other differences between the chipsets.
For graphics is responsible subsystem Arm Mali G52 MC2 2EE.
There is also a dual-core APU unit to work with artificial intelligence algorithms.LPDDR4x memory and eMMC 5.1 type drives are supported.
The chipsets also support installation of cameras up to 32 megapixels, have hardware optimization for VP9 decoding and H.265 encoding, and allow for video connectivity at up to 60 frames per second.
Chromebooks on these chipsets will be able to work with their own Full HD+ displays and optional Full HD monitors.Finally, the Pentonic 1000 platform is designed for 4K resolution TVs and up to 144Hz.
It supports Wi-Fi 6/6E, Dolby Vision IQ with Precision Detail (higher detail in bright and dark areas) and screen division into 8 streams, there is also a powerful AI-processor.
The central processor is a 4-core Arm Cortex-A73 with a frequency of 2.0 GHz, and the graphics is processed by Arm Mali-G57 MC2.
MediaTek specified that the devices on the new platforms will be available in 2023.

The first smartphones with Wi-Fi 7 will be released this year - the standard itself has not yet been approved

The Wi-Fi 7 standard has not yet been approved, but devices with its support are already appearing on the market.
The first smartphones to support the new Wi-Fi will hit the market before the end of this year, all thanks to the new MediaTek Dimensity 9200 chip.
At the moment, the most progressive in this regard are considered gadgets and network equipment that support Wi-Fi 6 and Wi-Fi 6E.Image source: mediatek.comThe new high-performance mobile processor MediaTek Dimensity 9200, as compared to its predecessor demonstrates a 10% performance gain in multi-core loads, a 32% increase in performance on graphic tasks, as well as a decrease in energy consumption by 25%.But in terms of communication capabilities, one of the biggest advantages of the new single-chip platform is the new one.
In particular, the new standard offers connection speeds of up to 30 Gbit / s, compared with the current Wi-Fi 6E 4.8 Gbit / s, but the average speed of the Internet is now much lower.
Even Wi-Fi 6E, which involves using the 6 GHz band in addition to the 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz bands already present in Wi-Fi 6, is not widespread.
However, smartphone owners on the Dimensity 9200 will be ready for Wi-Fi 7 networks when compatible hardware begins to appear.

MediaTek unveiled the Dimensity 9200, a 4nm flagship platform with Arm Cortex-X3, ray tracing and Wi-Fi 7

MediaTek unveiled the Dimensity 9200, a flagship mobile single-chip platform that uses the latest solutions for the mobile industry.
It is the first mobile platform to use the Arm Cortex-X3 main core with ARMv9 architecture and a 3.05 GHz operating frequency.
In addition to the Cortex-X3 core, the new chip uses three powerful 2.85 GHz Cortex-A715 cores and four efficient 1.8 GHz Arm Cortex-A510 cores.
The new chip is manufactured according to TSMC's second-generation N4P 4nm process.
Note that the upcoming Snapdragon 8 Gen 2, which will be the main competitor of MediaTek novelty, is rumored to have four core clusters: one Cortex-X3 (3.19 GHz), pairs of Cortex-A715 and A710 (2.8 GHz) and three Cortex-A510 (2.0 GHz).The second breakthrough solution in Dimensity 9200 is the advanced Arm Immortalis-G715 GPU with hardware ray tracing acceleration.
The new flagship platform supports Variable Rate Shading (VRS), that is variable rate shading, which should improve performance.
It also supports LPDDR5X random access memory with data transfer rate up to 8533 Mbit/s and the latest UFS 4.0 ROM.
There is also sixth generation AI processing unit (APU) 690, which provides up to 35% better performance compared to its predecessor, according to ETHZ5.0 benchmark.
It also features up to 30% and 45% reduction in power consumption for image noise removal and upscaling by AI.
The Dimensity 9200 supports up to two displays up to 5K resolution at 60 Hz or 1440p at 144 Hz or 1080p at 240 Hz.
It's also the first chipset to support Wi-Fi 7 at up to 6.5Gbps.
Of course, 5G networks are supported - both up to 6 GHz and millimeter band (mmWave), Bluetooth 5.3 is also provided.The Imagiq 890 image processor is capable of handling RGBW sensors, saving 34% power compared to the previous generation variant.
Finally, MediaTek eXtreme Power Saving technology is used on the basis of AI, allowing to use up to 30% less energy in general.It is expected that the first smartphones based on the Dimensity 9200 will appear on sale before the end of this year.
It is known that back in spring, according to AnTuTu benchmark, smartphones based on the Dimensity 9000 chip for the first time were among the top ten most powerful, displacing Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 models.

India will become a new growth point for MediaTek amid a downturn in the Chinese market

IDC analysts said yesterday that smartphone sales could decline by 3.5 percent this year, as the global decline in demand is exacerbated by the corresponding processes in the Chinese market.
MediaTek's representatives are not discouraged in this regard, as they are ready to bet on the Indian electronics market.Image source: MediaTekIn an interview with Bloomberg, Anku Jain, Managing Director of MediaTek in India, said that in the last couple of years the consumption of electronic devices in the local market has increased markedly and in the coming years, this trend should continue.
MediaTek processors dominate the global market in the sub-$200 smartphone segment, in this respect India holds significant growth potential for the Taiwanese processor developer's business.An additional driver for the Indian market is the expansion of cellular networks, which are preparing to move to 5G standards.
In addition to smartphones, TV sets, for which MediaTek also supplies processors, are in stable demand in the local market.
After the pandemic is over, according to a MediaTek spokesperson, demand for electronics in India will continue to grow.
The share of more expensive processors of this brand in the local market will also increase.
Now MediaTek has more than 700 engineers working in its Indian representative office, the company intends to expand the staff of local developers.
Cooperation with Chinese smartphone manufacturers and other partners is actively deepening.
Around 2 billion devices based on MediaTek processors are produced annually all over the world, and the company spends up to a quarter of all revenues on development and research.

MediaTek unveiled 6nm Dimensity 1050, Dimensity 930 and Helio G99 processors for mid-range smartphones

Taiwan-based company MediaTek today unveiled three new mobile processors for mid-range smartphones: Dimensity 1050, Dimensity 930 and Helio G99.
All of the new products are systems-on-chip (SoC) based on a 6nm manufacturing process.
Each chip has received eight computing cores.Image source: corp.mediatek.comMediaTek Dimensity 1050 is a \"lightweight\" version of the Dimensity 1100 model.
However, at the same time, it is the company's first processor capable of connecting to 5G networks in the mmWave 5G and sub-6GHz bands.
The Dimensity 1050 uses two 2.5GHz high-performance Arm Cortex-A78 cores.
What energy efficient cores are used here - the manufacturer does not specify.
Most likely, we are talking about Arm Cortex-A55.
The chip also got a graphics core Arm Mali-610 with support for MediaTek HyperEngine 5.0.
The latter provides additional tools and optimization features to improve performance in games.
The Dimensity 1050 is announced to support UFS 3.1 flash memory, LPDDR5 standard RAM, Full HD+ resolution screens with refresh rate up to 144Hz, and AV1 decoding hardware capabilities.
In addition, the manufacturer notes HDR10+ and Dolby Vision compatibility.
Support for cameras up to 108 megapixels is also indicated.The MediaTek Dimensity 1050 offers 3CC carrier aggregation below 6 GHz (FR1) and 4CC carrier aggregation in the mmWave spectrum (FR2) and is claimed to offer up to 53% higher downlink speeds compared to LTE + mmWave aggregation.
The MediaTek Dimensity 1050 also supports Wi-Fi 6E and 2x2 MIMO antenna for ultra-fast Wi-Fi connectivity.The first devices based on the MediaTek Dimensity 1050 should hit the market between July and September this year.
The situation with the Dimensity 930 is quite strange.
Despite the higher serial number of the chip, the frequency of its cores is lower than that of the previous Dimensity 920 and Dimensity 900 models.
The new processor got two 2.2GHz Cortex-A78 cores and six 2GHz Cortex-A55 cores.
The same Dimensity 900 and Dimensity 920 have 2.4GHz and 2.5GHz high performance cores, respectively.
However, the manufacturer has equipped the Dimensity 930 with a brand new graphics subsystem.
The IMG BXM-8-256 core is used here, which has never been seen in smartphones before.
What it is capable of - still unknown.The company claims for the Dimensity 930 support for UFS 3.1 flash memory and LPDDR5 RAM, cameras with a resolution up to 108 megapixels with the ability to shoot video in 4K resolution at 30 frames per second, support for 5G, Wi-Fi 5, Bluetooth 5.2 and screens with Full HD+ resolution, 120 Hz refresh rate and HDR10+ The Helio G99 platform does not have 5G support.
However, the company has moved the chip to a 6nm process.
The new SoC is more energy efficient than its predecessors based on 12nm process technology.The Helio G99 uses two 2.2GHz Cortex-A76 cores, six 2GHz Cortex-A55 cores and a Mali-G57 MC2 graphics subsystem.
The processor supports UFS 2.2 storage, LPDDR4X memory, 120Hz Full HD+ displays, and Wi-Fi 5 and Bluetooth 5.2 wireless standards.
In addition, support for 108-megapixel cameras is indicated, as well as sets of two 16-megapixel cameras with ZSL.The first Dimensity 930-based devices should be available in the second quarter of this year.
Helio G99-based smartphones will make their market debut in the third quarter.