At the recent event of India Gaming Conclave 2022 that was held in Delhi, we got the opportunity to get a face-to-face interview with one of the esteemed panellists Mr. Anku Jain, Managing Director, MediaTek India. Our editor-in-chief had a detailed discussion over many facets of microchips and what lies ahead with smart devices considering the arrival of 5G in India. We received detailed insight into MediaTek and how it operates globally and at the Indian level.
MediaTek who?
A lot of current smartphones are propping up with MediaTek Dimensity SoCs. For the consumer, more variety means competition means better products, more innovation and better prices. MediaTek, as incorrectly assumed my many, us included, isn’t really a newish company. It was started in Taiwan in 1997 and has been in the smartphone scene since the 2G era, as clarified by Mr. Anku Jain, stating “In the 2G era as well, we used to have featured phones and it was during this era only, that we manufactured our first phones.”
MediaTek is leading the way for 5G. Today, so many Android smartphones from leading brands such as Vivo, Oppo, POCO, Samsung, OnePlus etc. are sporting MediaTek Dimensity 5G chips, from mid-range to flagship phones. “We have been the frontrunner in the R&D of 5G, so yes we have become more popular now” clarifies Mr. Anku Jain.
MediaTek’s Operations in India
Our Chief Editor Sahil was interested to know more about how MediaTek operates in India. India doesn’t really come to mind when it comes to designing a microchip architecture. Thus, in the past, most chips were primarily designed for the Western markets keeping their needs in mind. We were interested to know whether MediaTek is designing chips with the Indian market and Indian needs in mind.
Mr. Anku Jain explains, “As we handle business on the global level, we have products like chips, microchips, smart TV chips, so we have been working on different verticals. Now we have teams working as software designers. Chips are manufactured in foundries located outside India, but we have a huge team over here that formulates the software.”
“MediaTek’s DORA(Dimensity Open-resource Architecture) is available for the latest MediaTek chips.. What that does it gives access to the raw data to the OEMs which they can use and leverage to make it even better. They can put customisations to appeal to their niche audience.” This is how Mr. Anku explains the localisation part of Dimensity chips, how brands like Oppo, POCO, Vivo work with MediaTek when designing a phone from the ground up.
Out of 17,000 global employees of the company, a 700 strong team work out of India via their centres in Noida and Bengaluru. Mr. Anku Jain explains: “We always strive towards making new innovations with research and as we are moving towards adopting 5G, there are already talks about 6G, which is due many years from now. We are an R&D company and we make sure that we have the best technologies, like we have Wi-fi 6 and now Wi-fi 7 available, so we keep focus on that and that’s how we have been able to do so well in the market.”
Chip shortage due to China-Taiwan clash
Considering the sensitive situation currently around Taiwan, and also how the world has just come out of a massive global chip supply shortage, Sahil expressed concern about whether these situations would create a shortage in the chip market again. “We cannot comment on it as of now. As you may have seen, various political situations in general have affected the chip shortage, but now it has become better” claims Mr. Anku Jain.
MediaTek’s Flagship Dimensity 9000
MediaTek’s current flagship chip is the Dimensity 9000, based on Arm’s V9 architecture. It is featured in flagship phones such as Honor 70 Pro+, the Redmi K50 Pro, and the Vivo X80, along with special Dimensity editions of the Vivo X80 Pro and Oppo Find X5 Pro. The chip is based on the 4nm process, and matches the performance of top-end competing SoCs.
