MediaTek Inc (聯發科) yesterday unveiled the world’s first ultra-high-resolution 8K TV system-on-chip made with Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co’s (TSMC, 台積電) 7-nanometer technology, as the next-generation TVs are excepted to hit the global market in the second quarter of next year, it said.
The Pentonic 2000 chip offers artificial intelligence engines, motion estimation and motion compensation, versatile video coding and picture-in-picture technologies, the company said in a release.
Compared with TSMC’s 16-nanometer process used to make chips for consumer electronics, the 7-nanometer process provides a 30 percent improvement in speed and 55 percent power reduction, as well as more than three times the logic density, it said.
In addition, the new chip has an ultra-wide memory bus, uses universal flash storage 3.1 and supports wireless connectivity for Wi-Fi 6E or 5G modems, it added.
MediaTek’s chips are used in nearly 2 billion TVs per year with customers such as China’s Oppo Mobile Telecommunications Corp (歐珀), South Korea’s LG Electronics Inc and Samsung Electronics Co, as well as Vizio Inc in North America.
TV-related chips contributed about 14 percent to MediaTek’s revenue of NT$131.07 billion (US$4.72 billion) last quarter, while mobile phone chips accounted for 56 percent, company data showed.
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