Handset chip designer MediaTek Inc (聯發科) on Monday said its new flagship Helio X30 has entered mass production and it expects the first batch of smartphones equipped with the advanced processor to enter the market next quarter.
The Helio X30 is one of the world’s first processors made using a 10-nanometer process, the most advanced technology currently available, MediaTek said in a statement at the chip’s launch on the first day of the annual GSMA Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain.
The processor, produced by Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), has 35 percent better performance and consumes about 50 percent less power than the previous-generation Helio X20, MediaTek said.
“Catering to consumers’ growing demand for smartphones that can multitask, Mediatek’s smartphone platforms provide optimal computing capabilities and resources in accordance with different tasks,” MediaTek co-chief operating officer Jeffrey Ju (朱尚祖) said in the statement.
MediaTek primarily supplies handset chips to Chinese vendors, including fast-rising brands Oppo Mobile Telecommunications Corp (歐珀移動) and Vivo Communication Technology Co Ltd (維沃移動通信).
US research and advisory firm Gartner Inc last year ranked Oppo as the world’s No. 4 handset maker, with a 5.7 percent share of the market, up from 2.8 percent in 2015.
Samsung Electronics Co’s Exynos 9, Qualcomm Inc’s Snapdragon 835 and Apple Inc’s A11 processors are also to be manufactured using 10-nanometer process technology by Samsung and TSMC.
Qualcomm and Samsung earlier this year said their 10-nanometer chips had entered mass production.
Sony Mobile Communication AB said that its latest flagship smartphone, the Xperia XZ Premium, is to be equipped with the Snapdragon 835 processor.
Hsinchu-based MediaTek said it provides chips for more than 35 percent of the world’s “smart” devices and enables more than 1.5 billion connected devices worldwide each year.
In a separate statement, MediaTek said it has formed a partnership with Nokia Corp to design a next-generation mobile telecommunications system.
The partnership is to combine MediaTek’s broad client base for connected devices with Nokia’s network expertise to bring to market a 5G-ready ecosystem for network operators and end users.
The joint effort aims to develop a standards-compliant platform for 5G telecommunications technology beginning next year, the statement said.
The ultimate goal is to roll out a 5G-ready network from Nokia combined with a 5G system-on-chip from MediaTek to bring new devices to market faster, it said.
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
TRANSFORMATION: Taiwan is now home to the largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, thanks to the nation’s economic policies President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday attended an event marking the opening of Google’s second hardware research and development (R&D) office in Taiwan, which was held at New Taipei City’s Banciao District (板橋). This signals Taiwan’s transformation into the world’s largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, validating the nation’s economic policy in the past eight years, she said. The “five plus two” innovative industries policy, “six core strategic industries” initiative and infrastructure projects have grown the national industry and established resilient supply chains that withstood the COVID-19 pandemic, Tsai said. Taiwan has improved investment conditions of the domestic economy
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
MAJOR BENEFICIARY: The company benefits from TSMC’s advanced packaging scarcity, given robust demand for Nvidia AI chips, analysts said ASE Technology Holding Co (ASE, 日月光投控), the world’s biggest chip packaging and testing service provider, yesterday said it is raising its equipment capital expenditure budget by 10 percent this year to expand leading-edge and advanced packing and testing capacity amid strong artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing chip demand. This is on top of the 40 to 50 percent annual increase in its capital spending budget to more than the US$1.7 billion to announced in February. About half of the equipment capital expenditure would be spent on leading-edge and advanced packaging and testing technology, the company said. ASE is considered by analysts