During Mobile World Congress in Barcelona this year, MediaTek demonstrated its M70 5G modem and showed it connecting to a Nokia base station at 4.7Gbps. Now, the company has announced the M70 modem will be integrated into a brand-new, world first 5G system-on-a-chip (SoC). It’s called, rather generically, the MediaTek 5G SoC, and it’s considerably more groundbreaking that its name suggests.
It’s the world’s first integrated 5G chip, built on the 7nm process, that’s ready to connect your smartphone to Sub-6 5G signals. That means no separate 5G modems split off from the CPU, and because it’s built using a 7nm process, it dissipates heat more effectively, meaning improved energy management for higher performance. This will be particularly noticeable when using artificial intelligence and features reliant on the GPU, says MediaTek.
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The A.I. inside MediaTek’s 5G SoC is driven by the third-generation APU, or A.I. Processing Unit, which surpasses version two integrated into the Helio P90 processor. MediaTek’s A.I. efforts may not have captured headlines in the way Huawei’s NPU has, but it’s similarly impressive in the way that it deals with onboard A.I. processing, and MediaTek promises version three will provide, “substantially higher performance than before.” MediaTek is also proud to be the first to build a chip on ARM’s latest Cortex A77 — which is specifically designed for 5G applications — complete with the new Mali A77 GPU.
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On the photographic side, the 5G SoC supports cameras with up to 80 megapixels, and this could mean multiple sensors too — a 48-megapixel sensor, a 20-megapixel sensor, and a 12-megapixel sensor for example. For video, it supports 4K resolution recordings at 60 fps. MediaTek recognizes it needed more than just 5G to attract manufacturers to use the new chip, which is why it has boosted A.I. ability, used the ARM Cortex A77, and supports a strong camera array.
For a while, MediaTek has concentrated on devices that fall into its, “new premium” category of high performing, midrange devices. However, this did not stop questions about its true premium efforts. The 5G SoC is its answer, and MediaTek’s Senior Director Russ Mestechkin said the chip and its A.I. is, “No compromise, best in class, and superior to the competition.”
What MediaTek’s new 5G won’t do is support mmWave 5G connections. It’s focused on Sub-6 connections, which will be behind the majority of 5G devices launching in China, and is also supported by T-Mobile and Sprint in the U.S. MediaTek is closely watching the situation regarding the merger between these two companies. In February, Qualcomm announced the world’s first integrated 5G SoC that can connect to both mmWave and Sub-6 5G signals.
MediaTek expects to start sending samples of the 5G SoC to its partners before the end of 2019, ready for the first devices powered by the chip to launch during the first three months of 2020. Next year demand for 5G phones at all price points will accelerate beyond the early adopter, high price phase in 2019, and we’ve no reason to doubt that even with a true premium spec, MediaTek’s 5G SoC will be prohibitively priced, allowing more manufacturers to make desirable 5G smartphones that deliver 5G speeds without compromise.
When did 5G come out? The long, complicated history of its release
Although 2022 will likely be heralded as the year 5G truly went mainstream, we’ve traveled a long and winding road to get here. Carriers began actively working on preparing this leading-edge cellular tech as early as 2015, but it wasn’t until the end of 2018 that the first 5G mobile towers came online. It also took until 2020 before 5G was much more than a curiosity for early adopters.
Although previous cellular technologies like 4G/LTE also spent a long time in the research and development stages, those didn’t experience nearly the same growing pains that 5G has. When 4G/LTE services began rolling out broadly in 2011, it was the same basic technology across all the major U.S. carriers.
5G Nationwide vs. 5G Ultra Wideband: What’s different (and why you should care)
The rollout of 5G networks across the U.S. has been a bit more complicated than prior cellular technologies. While this is primarily due to a broader range of frequencies used by 5G networks, cellular carriers have added to the confusion by treating us to a complicated array of terms like 5G Plus, 5G Nationwide, 5G Ultra Wideband, 5G Ultra Capacity, and 5G Extended Range.
With so many different terms, it can be hard to figure out what it all means — especially when the carriers have unique names for similar types of 5G services. Nowhere has this been more apparent recently than with Verizon, which has rolled out its 5G services somewhat differently from the rest. The carrier has now settled on two broad terms to describe its 5G coverage: 5G Nationwide and 5G Ultra Wideband. But what exactly do these mean, and how did we get here?
What frequency is 5G? All the different 5G ranges, explained
If you’ve been thinking 5G seems more complicated than the cellular technologies that came before, you’re not entirely wrong. 5G promises faster performance, better coverage, and ubiquitous connectivity to power the next generation of autonomous cars and smart devices. To accomplish this, it needs to push the boundaries of what was possible with older cellular technologies.
This also requires 5G to operate across a much wider range of frequencies. After all, we’re talking about a technology that has the potential to replace wired broadband connections and even many traditional Wi-Fi networks. In the future, a 5G network won’t be something you merely fall back on when a better connection isn’t available -- it may very well be the best connection you can get.
