Taiwanese fabless chipmaker MediaTek has been missing on the flagship chip segment for a long while due to the dominance of Qualcomm in that segment. The company instead shifted its focus to the midrange and budget chip segment and it has been a successful move so far. The company is looking to relaunch its product in the flagship segment with the emerging 5G connectivity.

Mediatek 5G SOC
Mediatek 5G SOC

Already, the company is reportedly set to start shipping its 5G chipset by Q4 2019. The Helio M70 which is MediaTek’s first 5G chipset modem was first announced last year.

While shifting attention to the flagship segment, the Taiwanese chipmaker isn’t losing sight of its stronghold- the midrange segment. A report from China claims the company is planning to launch another 7nm chipset that would be used on its midrange 5G chipsets. Of course, this will bring more affordable pricing. The report carried by Chinese blog MyDrivers hinted that the architecture should be the same as the MT6885, the same chipset that has an Helio M70 modem. However, the chip said to go by the codename “MT6873” will come with a smaller size and will be more affordable. The company is expected to commence mass production in Q2 2020, which means it could find its way into smartphones by Q3 or Q4 2020. The company expects to ship about 100 million sold chips in 2020 with the upcoming MT6885 and MT6873 5G SoCs expected to account for half of its shipments next year.

Further, the Taiwanese fabless semiconductor giant is expected to switch to TSMC’s 6nm EUV process after it is done with the two chipsets. The 6nm SoC will be the first EUV product for the Taiwanese company. There are four designs in total, all of them with an upgrade of the CPU and the GPU.

 

(via)