Skip to main content
  1. Home
  2. Mobile

4 big names commit to MediaTek’s Dimensity 9000 chip for flagship phones

Andy Boxall
By

The Dimensity 9000 is MediaTek’s first true flagship smartphone processor, and one that is expected to power a wide variety of high-end devices over the next year. MediaTek said at its launch that the first devices with the chip inside would arrive during the first three months of 2022, and it has now released details on which manufacturers are signed on to use the Dimensity 9000.

Currently, there are four names on the list, and due to MediaTek’s admission that the Dimensity 9000 would initially be most relevant to the Chinese market, several of the manufacturers don’t have a big international presence at the moment. However, one stands out as being different, and that’s Oppo. The company says “the next Find X flagship will be the first to be launched with the Dimensity 9000 flagship platform.”

A render of the MediaTek Dimensity 900 processor.
MediaTek

What makes this interesting is we’re fairly sure that the next Find X flagship series will be the Find X4, and Oppo has already said that at least one of the Find X4 phones will use the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 processor. The Find X3 series included several models — the Find X3, Find X3 Pro, and Find X3 Lite — so it’s reasonable to expect a similar lineup for the Find X4. While we don’t know details yet, it may be the Find X4 Pro will take the Qualcomm processor and be sold in all of Oppo’s markets, while the Find X4 may use the Dimensity 9000 chip and be sold mainly in key markets in Asia.

Related

Either way, it looks like Oppo is going to have a Find X4 model with one of the latest, top mobile processors inside, plus at least one of them will also use its new MariSilicon X Neural Processing Unit (NPU) dedicated to assisting Artificial Intelligence (A.I.) used by the camera. The Find X4 is definitely one to look out for in early 2022.

Recommended Videos

Joining Oppo is Honor, recently reinvigorated after being sold off by Huawei. It already uses MediaTek processors in some of its devices. It stops short of sharing any information on a future device using the Dimensity 9000, and instead commits to “deepening our cooperation with MediaTek to create even more innovative experiences for our fans.”

The other two companies on board with MediaTek are Vivo and Redmi. Redmi — a spinoff brand of Xiaomi — has revealed it will use the Dimensity 9000 in one of the as-yet-unannounced Redmi K50 smartphone series devices, and also that it worked with MediaTek on testing the new chip. Finally, Vivo will launch a Dimensity 9000-powered smartphone in 2022, but does not say when or reveal the name of the device.

MediaTek works with a variety of other manufacturers, including OnePlus, Motorola, and Samsung, so expect more names to be added to the list in the future, either for the Dimensity 9000 or one of the future chips in the range.

Editors' Recommendations

Topics
Andy Boxall
Andy Boxall
Senior Mobile Writer
Andy is a Senior Writer at Digital Trends, where he concentrates on mobile technology, a subject he has written about for…
Are MediaTek and Qualcomm feeling pressure from in-house chips?
A render of the MediaTek Dimensity 900 processor.

For well over a decade, Qualcomm and MediaTek have been the default choices for the best smartphone makers. Almost every smartphone or tablet you see is powered by either a Qualcomm Snapdragon or MediaTek chipset. But the tremendous growth in the performance of mobile devices over the last few years implies that even the slightest of differences in performance can significantly impact a buyer's decision. Companies such as Apple have played this to their advantage by hailing the performance of its custom chips over counterparts from Qualcomm and MediaTek.

With swarms of phone manufacturers exploring ways to design their own custom smartphone chipsets in a bid to offer a customized experience to the users. the phenomenon appears to be on the rise. Will Qualcomm and MediaTek succumb to this pressure from companies designing their chips in-house?
Samsung and Huawei have been making chips for a while

Read more
A flaw in MediaTek audio chips could have exposed Android users’ conversations
A MediaTek processor on a motherboard.

Security researchers have discovered a new flaw in a MediaTek chip used in over a third of the world’s smartphones that could have potentially been used to listen in on private conversations. The chip in question is an audio processing chip by MediaTek that’s found in many Android smartphones from vendors such as Xiaomi, Oppo, Realme, and Vivo. Left unpatched, researchers say, a hacker could have exploited the vulnerabilities in the chip to eavesdrop on Android users and even hide malicious code.
Check Point Research (CPR) reverse-engineered MediaTek’s audio chip, discovering an opening that could allow a malicious app to install code meant to intercept audio passing through the chip and either record it locally or upload it to an attacker’s server. 
CPR disclosed its findings to MediaTek and Xiaomi several weeks ago, and the four identified vulnerabilities have already been patched by MediaTek. Details on the first can be found in MediaTek’s October 2021 Security Bulletin, while information on the fourth will be published in December. 
“MediaTek is known to be the most popular chip for mobile devices,” Slava Makkaveev, Security Researcher at Check Point Software, said to Digital Trends in a press release. “Given its ubiquity in the world, we began to suspect that it could be used as an attack vector by potential hackers. We embarked research into the technology, which led to the discovery of a chain of vulnerabilities that potentially could be used to reach and attack the audio processor of the chip from an Android application.”
Fortunately, it looks like researchers caught the flaws before they could be exploited by malicious hackers. Makkaveev also raised concerns about the possibility of device manufacturers exploiting this flaw “to create a massive eavesdrop campaign;” however, he notes that his firm didn’t find any evidence of such misuse. 
Tiger Hsu, product security officer at MediaTek, also said that the company has no evidence that the vulnerability has been exploited but added that it worked quickly to verify the problem and make the necessary patches available to all device manufacturers who rely on MediaTek’s audio processors. 
Flaws like these are also often mitigated by security features in the Android operating system and the Google Play Store, and both Makkaveev and Hsu are reminding users to keep their devices updated to the latest available security patches and only install applications from trusted locations. 

Read more
Dimensity 9000 vs. Snapdragon 888: How new MediaTek flagship threatens Qualcomm
A render of the MediaTek Dimensity 900 processor.

The MediaTek Dimensity 9000 chipset is intended to launch the Taiwanese chipmaker into the mainstream on the back of performance that rivals the 800-pound gorillas in the room, like Apple's A15 Bionic and the Qualcomm Snapdragon 888 and 888 Plus mobile platforms. While the new chip appears solid on paper, how well is it actually equipped to take on these competitors? We take a look.
What's the big deal about Dimensity?
Many smartphone companies are following in Apple's footsteps, with plans to launch their own systems on a chip (SoC) to cut away from their dependence on a single brand and mitigate the effects of the global semiconductor shortage. As a result, many companies are trying to find their place in a race that is currently led by Qualcomm. Aside from smartphone companies moving production in-house, underdogs like MediaTek are also vying for a share in the flagship market. The result of this is the new and powerful MediaTek Dimensity 9000 chipset, which is tailored to take on the leaders in the segment.

MediaTek's Dimensity series has already made headlines around the world after being used on popular devices such as the OnePlus Nord 2 and the Realme X7 Max, both of which run the Dimensity 1200. Although high-end, these are not flagship or premium devices, and truth be told, MediaTek hasn't really had a truly flagship chipset -- until now. With the Dimensity 9000, MediaTek aims to challenge the invariable monopoly of the Snapdragon 8xx series in the flagship Android smartphone market.
Dimensity 9000
The MediaTek Dimensity 9000 has many firsts up its sleeves. Besides being the first mobile SoC to be manufactured on a 4nm process, it is the first one to use TSMC's new N4 design. This design choice gives it an edge over the Snapdragon 888, the Apple A15 Bionic, and the Samsung Exynos 2100 — all of which are based on 5nm designs. Qualcomm's shift of its chip manufacturing from TSMC to Samsung's foundries presents an opportunity for MediaTek to fill this gap and benefit significantly because of the smaller node — thus, leading the industry in this respect.
New Core Architecture

Read more