The Taiwan-based MediaTek Inc. had released the Helio X30 (MT6799) system-on chip built with 10nm FinFET processing technology in Q1 2017. According to industry sources, MediaTek’s Helio P series chipsets will be powering the mid-range and high-end smartphones in the first half of this year. Since the smartphone industry will soon see the advent of the 5G mobile communication era, MediaTek is speculated to launch a flagship smartphone chipset in the second half of this year.
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) is expected to build at least three new 7nm chipsets for MediaTek. This indicates how determined it is to become the numero uno chipset manufacturing company. As many of its customers such as OPPO, Vivo, Sony, LG and other smartphone makers from emerging nations are getting ready to embrace the upcoming 5G technology, the Taiwan-based chip making company has been actively working on AI enabled chipsets. As mentioned above, the company is heavily pegged to debut new chipsets for flagship phones in second half of this year.
At the beginning of 2017, MediaTek had released Helio X10, Helio X20 and Helio X30 chipsets for high-end smartphones. Even though the Taiwanese firm provided advanced technology at cheaper price compared to rivaling chipset making companies such as Qualcomm, it could not succeed in bagging many customers.
Read More: New Report Tips Apple As Working WIth MediaTek On Modems For 2018 iPhones
The probable reason why it failed to attract major customers like Apple, Samsung, Huawei and Xiaomi is that these companies have been developing their own in-house chipsets for their smartphones. Moreover, most of the leading smartphone vendors are interested in using Qualcomm’s chipsets. This is speculated to be the reason why MediaTek decided to halt the production of its Helio X series chipsets. Also, in order to prevent the gross margins of chipsets from falling down, MediaTek had to stop the related investments in the latter half of last year.
Recent reports have revealed that the upcoming Helio P-series chipsets from MediaTek are the Helio P40 and Helio P70. These 12nm chipsets built by TSMC will be focused on Artificial Intelligence (AI) and facial recognition.
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