In 2023, the general environment is turbulent, and the tide of the technology circle is still surging.2023, which is regarded as a year of recovery, has finally given the mobile phone industry a glimmer of hope, and the decline in overall market sales has slowed down. However, the smartphone industry continues to be under high pressure, and this pressure is further passed on to mobile phone chip manufacturers. MediaTek, which has risen with the help of the 5G wave, has become an important force in the mobile phone chip market.Large models open up a new world of AI, Vision Pro leads spatial computing, smart trams surpass oil vehicles, Pinduoduo "new king" has been established, smart phones are innovating, new hardware is emerging one after another, HarmonyOS system is accelerating its growth, and AI chips drive the ...... of everythingIn 2023, there are too many major events in the tech industry.
The "2023 Please Answer" series will systematically sort out the companies, products, technologies and people worth recording in the technology industry in 2023, and the "2024 Observatory" series will look forward to the "spoilers" of the products and technologies worth looking forward to in the technology industry in 2024, continue to output high-quality content, pay tribute to innovation, record the times, and think about the past to inspire the future.
Over the past year, MediaTek has further consolidated its flagship strategy and strengthened its presence in the flagship market. At the same time, MediaTek's layout at the technical level has also achieved results, and it has gradually built its own moat in various fields such as games, communications, and connections. 2023 is an extremely critical year for MediaTek to break the original comfort zone and explore the higher-end chip market.
In recent years, MediaTek's first real mobile phone flagship chip is the Dimensity 9000 released in 2021, which has the strength to wrestle with Qualcomm in terms of parameters and specifications. In 2023, MediaTek released two flagship chips, namely the Dimensity 9200+, which was unveiled in May, and the Dimensity 9300, which was unveiled in November.
The Dimensity 9200+ is naturally an upgraded version of the Dimensity 9200 released at the end of 2022, the CPU part, it consists of 1 Cortex-X3 core + 3 Cortex-A715 cores + 4 Cortex-A510 cores. Among them, the X3 core frequency is from 305GHz to 335GHz, A715 core frequency from 285GHz increased to 3GHz, and the A510 core frequency increased from 18 GHz to 2 GHz. In terms of GPU, it is equipped with Immortalis-G715, which increases the peak frequency by 17%.
Source: MediaTek).
Higher frequencies for greater extreme performance. The most intuitive, MediaTek data shows that compared with the Dimensity 9200, the Dimensity 9200+ Geekbench single-core performance has increased by 10%, and the multi-core performance has increased by 5%. Obviously, one of the roles of the Dimensity 9200+ after its launch is to fight against the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 of the Qualcomm camp.
In 2023, the Dimensity 9200+ models released by various brands include the iQOO Neo8 Pro, Redmi K60 Extreme Edition, and Vivo X90S. Although it still can't compete with the Qualcomm camp in terms of quantity, the Dimensity 9200+ can really reach the flagship user group.
Of course, MediaTek's flagship of the year in 2023 has to be the Dimensity 9300, which will be released in November. The Dimensity 9300 boldly adopts a 4+4 all-large-core CPU architecture, including 1 325GHz Cortex-X4+3 pcs285GHz Cortex-X4+4 pcs 20GHz A720 core. In the GPU part, the Dimensity 9300 uses a 12-core Immortalis-720 with a frequency of 1300MHz.
Source: MediaTek).
The Dimensity 9300 has strong specifications and outstanding running scores. In the evaluation of Lei Technology, the vivo X100 equipped with Dimensity 9300 scored 2.17 million points in Antutu, which is more than 500,000 points higher than the Redmi K60 Extreme Edition equipped with Dimensity 9200+. At present, the Dimensity 9300 model only has two models, vivo X100 and vivo X100 Pro, which is a certain gap with the number of Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 models. However, the Dimensity 9300 is the flagship chip released at the end of the year, and its corresponding model will appear on a large scale in 2024.
Source: Lei Technology).
In addition to flagship chips, MediaTek's mobile phone chip shipments are still concentrated in the mid-range, low-end and entry-level markets, and MediaTek releases a large number of mobile phone chip products with different positioning every year.
In 2023, MediaTek will release a relatively small number of low-end chips, bringing a Dimensity 7200 in February. The Dimensity 7200 uses the same TSMC second-generation 4nm process as the Dimensity 9200, but the specifications are still quite different, and its CPU is powered by 2 main clocks of 2The 8GHz A715 core is composed of 6 A510 cores, and the GPU is Mali-610. The Dimensity 7200 was later derived from the Dimensity 7200-Ultra version, which was used on the Redmi Note 13 Pro+. The Dimensity 7200 is positioned as a mid-range chip, targeting products in the 2000 yuan price segment.
Source: MediaTek).
In addition, Dimensity's previous chip lineup includes multiple product series such as Dimensity 1000, Dimensity 900, Dimensity 800, and Dimensity 700. In 2023, MediaTek has reorganized them. For example, the Dimensity 700 is upgraded to the Dimensity 6020, the Dimensity 810 is upgraded to the Dimensity 6080, the Dimensity 930 is upgraded to the Dimensity 7020, the Dimensity 1080 is upgraded to the Dimensity 7050, the Dimensity 1100 is upgraded to the Dimensity 8020, and the Dimensity 1200 is upgraded to the Dimensity 8050.
After the name change, the positioning of the different digital series of Dimensity has become clearer: the Digital 9 series is mainly aimed at the high-end flagship market, the 8 series is mainly aimed at the sub-flagship market, the 7 series is mainly aimed at the mid-range market, and the 6 series is mainly aimed at the entry market.
In fact, low-end chips are the basic disk of MediaTek's mobile phone market and play an important role. Counterpoint data shows that in Q2 2023, MediaTek ranks first in the global smartphone chip market with a share of 30%, and MediaTek has maintained the title of mobile phone chip shipment champion for three consecutive years.
Source: counterpoint).
In Xiaolei's view, MediaTek's ability to maintain the first market share of mobile phone chips for a long time is inseparable from its powerful performance in low-end chips. In the face of the low-end market, MediaTek has created a large number of dessert-level chip products, that is, with relatively good performance and peripheral configurations to meet the most mainstream needs of users. Moreover, in this part of the market, Dimensity chips have obvious advantages, so they will be favored by mobile phone manufacturers.
Nowadays, the integration of mobile phone chips is getting higher and higher, and the tasks are getting heavier and heavier. In addition to the most traditional CPU and GPU parts, mobile phone SoCs often integrate AI computing units, ISP image processors, baseband chips, and so on. In addition, the pressure of involution in the mobile phone industry has also come to chip manufacturers, and MediaTek, these chip manufacturers, also need to provide various solutions for user use scenarios to enhance the competitiveness of chip platforms, which requires technical layout in various fields such as games, AI, and imaging.
In 2023, MediaTek's technological achievements are constantly evolving. In terms of gaming, the Dimensity 9300 supports hardware ray tracing technology on mobile devices. MediaTek's game technology has been successfully implemented, the Dimensity 9300 is the first in the industry to support "Dark Zone Breakout" 60fps ray tracing, and the "Sword and Fairy World" ray tracing version will also be the first release of the Dimensity 9300.
Source: MediaTek).
In terms of AI, the hottest technology in 2023 is naturally large models. The multi-year layout of AI has given MediaTek chips an advantage in this regard. For a long time, Dimensity chips have been equipped with independent AI computing units, such as the Dimensity 9300 integrated with the APU 790 and the Dimensity 8300 with the integrated APU 780. Moreover, the two chips released by MediaTek at the end of the year have also done a lot of technical support for AI scenarios. For example, the Dimensity 9300 can support large models with up to 33 billion parameters through memory optimization and other technologies. At the same time, the strong AI performance of Dimensity chips allows them to be applied to generative AI scenarios to meet the various needs of device and side AI.
Source: MediaTek).
MediaTek's continuous investment in chip technology shows that it is not only a chip manufacturer, but also a chip ecosystem. Through technical solutions that can solve user needs and tools and platforms that reduce development costs, MediaTek will be able to attract more partners, and when the ecology takes shape, Dimensity chips will have stronger advantages.
In the mobile phone chip market, MediaTek can be called a veteran player. As early as the era of feature phones, MediaTek has a strong sense of presence. However, for a long time in the past, MediaTek has been rooted in the sinking market. But in recent years, things have changed. MediaTek's Dimensity chip has continued to conquer the low-end market with its excellent comprehensive strength, and has become the first in the industry.
At the same time, MediaTek launched an attack on the high-end and flagship markets. In the past 2023, we can see MediaTek's efforts on flagship chips, and hand in the Dimensity 9300 exam paper in the big exam at the end of the year. From hardware specifications to running scores, to technical achievements, the overall performance of the Dimensity 9300 has reached the level of a top-tier flagship. Of course, the true strength of the Dimensity 9300 will be fully demonstrated in the flagship market in 2024.
As ordinary users, we are glad to see more players in the flagship mobile phone chip market, making the competition more sufficient. At the same time, we also expect MediaTek to bring more dessert-level mid-range chips with larger shipments in addition to flagship chips in 2024, after all, they are aimed at a larger audience.
2023 Annual Stocktake