5G is the new craze in the smartphone industry and we’ve already seen a bunch of smartphones like Galaxy S10 5G, Huawei Mate 20 X 5G, and even the OPPO Reno 5G. These new-age 5G phones were initially launched in the European market and all of them had one thing in common – they were super expensive. MediaTek wants to change this with its new 5G SoC. For some reason, this Taiwanese chipmaker has decided to call it simply as the MediaTek 5G SoC. The company unveiled the new chipset at Computex Taiwan earlier today.
Unlike current smartphones in the market which use a two-chip 5G solution (like the Snapdragon X50 modem), the MediaTek 5G SoC features an integrated modem. Plus, the SoC comes with multi-mode support which means there’s no need for an additional LTE modem. This support allows the MediaTek’s 5G chip to connect to anything from 2G to 4G when the new-age 5G connectivity is not available. If you remember, Qualcomm’s second-generation modem, the Snapdragon X55 is an integrated one-chip solution and comes with multi-mode support. However, it’ll only be available by 2020, around the same time as MediaTek’s 5G modem will be available in smartphones.
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5G isn’t the only highlight of the new MediaTek SoC. The chip is actually pretty capable too, thanks to the new-age Cortex-A77 CPU and Mali-G77 GPU. These two designs were announced by ARM a couple of days back and boast increased processing power and efficiency as compared to its predecessors. The chip also comes with the APU (AI Processing Unit) 3.0 which adds new features such as real-time autofocus, auto exposure, auto white balance, photo de-blurring, and beautification. Other notable features include support for 80MP camera sensors and 4K video encoding and decoding at 60fps.
Talking about its 5G capabilities, the SoC supports downloads up to 4.7Gbps and uploads up to 2.7Gbps. The new MediaTek 5G modem supports sub-6Ghz frequencies, which the company expects to be more widely used than mmWave frequencies around the world. This is one way how the new SoC cuts costs and makes it more affordable than current solutions.
Expect to see the new MediaTek 5G SoC in affordable flagships and premium mid-rangers. The chip will be available in Q3 2019 and phones with this SoC is said to hit the markets around early 2020.
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