MediaTek is going all-in on its next flagship smartphone chipset: the Dimensity 9400. Like Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Gen 4, this SoC will be mass-produced on TSMC’s second-generation 3nm process, promising significant improvements in performance and efficiency. MediaTek CEO Rick Tsai has expressed confidence in the new chip, predicting a 50% increase in the company’s annual revenue from its launch.
MediaTek’s previous flagship chipset, the Dimensity 9300, contributed significantly to the company’s 70% revenue growth in 2023, generating $1 billion on its own. Tsai seems confident that the Dimensity 9400 can replicate that success, thanks to its advanced features.
Mediatek CEO Rick Tsai
Like the Dimensity 9300, the Dimensity 9400 is expected to forgo low-power cores, relying exclusively on high-performance cores to deliver unprecedented single-core and multi-core performance, leveraging ARM’s ‘BlackHawk’ CPU architecture. Additionally, MediaTek’s new chipset is said to have the largest die ever made, measuring 150mm² and packing a whopping 30 billion transistors, resulting in a massive cache and an improved neural processing unit (NPU). These upgrades are expected to give the Dimensity 9400 superior performance in on-device generative AI.
It is expected to be released in October 2024. That’s the same month that MediaTek’s main competitor Qualcomm is expected to launch its Snapdragon 8 Gen 4, creating some interesting competition in the flagship chipset market. If MediaTek can offer the Dimensity 9400 at a competitive price, it could achieve its CEO’s revenue growth target. Vivo has been listed as an early customer, so the first flagship smartphone with the Dimensity 9400 could come from the Chinese manufacturer, which is a leader in China where the smartphone market has returned to growth.
What do you think? Does it look like an interesting challenge? Let us know in the comments below.
