MediaTek surpassed Qualcomm to become China’s largest SoC supplier

As it became known, MediaTek is currently the largest supplier of mobile SoCs for smartphones in China. Despite the downturn in the Chinese market, MediaTek managed to outpace the competition and lead the market. SoC shipments in China totaled 307 million units in 2020, down 20.8% from 2019.

MediaTek took first place with a market share of 31.7% in the second half of 2020, while in the first half of the year the company held 17.9% of the market. At the same time, Hisilicon’s market share from 37% in the first half of last year to 27.2% in the second half. Qualcomm’s share fell from 30.8% in the first half to 25.4% in the second half.

On an annualized basis, MediaTek’s market share has nearly doubled compared to the second half of 2019. On the other hand, the shares of Qualcomm and HiSilicon declined over the same period. One of the reasons for the growing popularity of MediaTek chips is the steady demand for smartphones between $100 and $250.

This week, MediaTek unveiled its flagship Dimensity 1200 SoC, which is manufactured in a 6nm process.

MediaTek Releases Dimensity 1200 and Dimensity 1100 5G SoCs

The Taiwanese chip maker MediaTek held an online new product launch conference recently and officially launched a new generation of high-end SoC Dimensity 1200 and Dimensity 1100 chips.

At the press conference, Xu Jingquan, deputy general manager of MediaTek, stated that global shipments of 5G smartphones in 2020 will exceed 200 million. It is expected that shipments of 5G smartphones will reach 500 million in 2021, achieving a double-digit growth.

Xu Jingquan said that MediaTek has launched 5G Dimensity series covering mid-to-low-end high-end products within one year, such as Dimensity 1000 series, Dimensity 800 series and Dimensity 700 series. Thus, they satisfied everyone’s demand for the rapid growth of 5G.

According to the official statement, the Dimensity 5G mobile chip global shipments reached 45 million in 2020.

Regarding the development of the 5G market in 2021, Xu Jingquan said that it will double the growth in 2021, and it is expected that the shipment of 5G smartphones in 2021 will reach 500 million.

At the press conference, MediaTek invited speakers from companies such as ARM, China Mobile, China Unicom, China Telecom, Xiaomi, OPPO, and VIVO. Among them, Lu Weibing, general manager of the Redmi brand, announced that Redmi will first launch the Dimensity flagship phone.

Dimensity 1200

Subsequently, MediaTek’s new flagship 5G SoC Dimensity 1200 was officially unveiled. The chip uses a 6-nanometer process. The CPU uses ARM’s latest A78 core with a frequency of 3.0GHz. There are also 3 large A78 cores with a frequency of 2.6GHz and 4 small A55 cores. Officially, the Dimensity 1200 performance has increased by 22% and energy efficiency has increased by 25%.

At the press conference, MediaTek emphasized the startup speed and application download and installation speed. In terms of APU and GPU, the Dimensity 1200 also has different degrees of improvement.

The Dimensity 1200 integrates a new generation of 5G modem. Officially, this chip is the first SoC that supports 5G high-speed rail mode and 5G elevator mode. At the same time, the Dimensity 1200 adopts power-saving 5G UltraSave technology to ensure power consumption under the SA network. In addition, the chip has 5G global band bandwidth support. And MediaTek claims that its downlink speed in urban areas is 25% faster than competing products.

As for photography, the Dimensity 1200 has AI speed night shooting capability. It speeds up AI computing a lot. At the same time, the Dimensity 1200 brings a super panoramic AI night shot mode. The single-frame progressive HDR video function previously unveiled on Snapdragon 888 also appeared on the Dimensity 1200. AI multi-person blur function can recognize multiple people in real time and perform background blur; there is also a multi-depth intelligent focus function that allows live screen to be more layered.

Gaming

In terms of gaming, the Dimensity 1200 is optimized from four aspects: network, image quality, control, and intelligent load. The continuous network function of incoming calls is upgraded to 3.0. In the dual-card state, one card can be inserted to transmit data. And the other can transmit communication signals without interfering with each other. You can turn on hotspots at the same time when playing games. MediaTek is really good for high-speed rail and other game scenarios.

In terms of game image quality, the Dimensity 1200 adds a ray tracing technology to allow virtual objects to interact with real-life ambient light and have better reflection and refraction. MediaTek will cooperate with Tencent Games’ ‘Honor of Kings’ to make chip-level optimizations.

The main difference between another chip product Dimensity 1100 and Dimensity 1200 lies in the CPU architecture, GPU and APU capabilities, as well as the supported cameras and screen refresh rates.

Dimensity 1100

The Dimensity 1100 chip uses TSMC’s 6nm process technology. It has four A78 2.6GHz cores and four A55 2.0GHz cores. It integrates the ARM G77 MC9 GPU and supports dual-channel UFS 3.1.

The Dimensity 1100 includes a highly integrated 5G modem, using MediaTek UltraSave 5G technology, which has excellent energy-saving effects. In addition to supporting the latest connection functions, it also supports various generations of connection functions from 2G to 5G, including (SA) independent and dependent (NSA) 5G architecture, frequency division duplex (FDD) and time division duplex (TDD) 5G Carrier Aggregation (2CC), Dynamic Spectrum Sharing (DSS), true dual-SIM 5G (5G SA+5G SA) and 5G HD Voice (VoNR). The chipset also integrates enhancements to 5G HSR mode and 5G Elevator mode to ensure reliable and seamless 5G connections across networks.

The Dimensity 1100 also includes impressive camera functions. It supports a 108-megapixel camera and integrates MediaTek’s existing APU 3.0, enabling high-performance computing and super energy-saving. Also, our protagonist supports AI camera functions, including AI panoramic night shooting, AI multi-person blur, AI noise reduction (AINR) and HDR functions. The chipset also supports new AI enhanced video playback functions, including SDR to HDR AI.

Display and Connectivity

Apart from this, the Dimensity 1100 also supports a 144Hz refresh rate display to obtain ultra-clear, delay-free images. There is support for MediaTek HyperEngine 3.0 game technology. The latter includes 5G call and data concurrency, providing more reliable connection. Plus, it brings a multi-touch response speed, improving the performance of the touchscreen. The new chipset also supports ‘ray tracing’ in mobile games and artificial reality applications to obtain more realistic images. At the same time, the super hotspot saves power, allowing users to have more time between charges.

The Dimensity 1100 supports true dual-link wireless stereo audio Bluetooth 5.2, allowing users to simultaneously transmit to multiple wireless devices. The chipset also supports true wireless stereo audio, ultra-low latency and LC3 encoding. It can achieve higher quality and lower latency audio transmission, which is also very energy-efficient and can extend the battery life of wireless headsets.