In a surprise announcement, MediaTek, the manufacturer of Dimensity and Helios chips that are seen in smartphones by a number of manufacturers such as RealMe, Oppo, Infinix, OnePlus etc, has developed its 3nm chips with TSMC (Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Technology) and will begin mass production of the chips in 2024. TSMC unveiled and detailed its 3nm manufacturing nodes back in June 2022 at the TSMC Technology Symposium.
First to announce a 3nm smartphone chip
Subsequently, we shall start seeing MediaTek powered 3nm chip smartphones, tables and intelligent cars in the second half of 2024. With this announcement, MediaTek has officially become the world’s first company to announce a 3nm smartphone chipset, an impressive feat.
MediaTek and TSMC, both Taiwanese giants, have been partners since a long time. TSMC makes most, if not all of MediaTek’s Dimensity chips.
Apple is another major smartphone manufacturer who has booked the majority of TSMC’s 3nm production, but has not made an official statement on what it is developing these 3nm chips for. We might see Apple using 3nm chips in the soon to be unveiled iPhone 15 Pro on September 12. If this happens, Apple would become the first company to launch a device that is using a 3nm processor.
We are committed to our vision of using the world’s most advanced technology to create cutting edge products that improve our lives in meaningful ways. TSMC’s consistent and high-quality manufacturing capabilities enable MediaTek to fully demonstrate its superior design in flagship chipsets, offering the highest performance and quality solutions to our global customers and enhancing the user experience in the flagship market.”
Joe Chen, President of MediaTek.
Significant improvements over 4nm chips
According to MediaTek, TSMC’s 3nm process node offer up to 18% faster performance using the same power as 5nm chips. In other words, the 3nm chips deliver the same performance as 5nm chips, using 32% lower power than 5nm chips.The main underlying feature of these 3nm chips is that they offer up to 60% improved logic density.
These improvements, coupled together, could offer significant improvement in performance and battery life compared to current-gen flagship smartphone processors from MediaTek, Qualcomm and Samsung.
Currently MediaTek is offering 4nm chip SoCs in its Dimensity 9000 series mobile CPUs. These chips are known for their fast performance and power efficiency.
Other 3nm prospects
Qualcomm and Samsung are expected to unveil their first 3nm chips by the end of 2024, and we can expect to see devices by early 2025. There are rumors of Samsung working on a dream Exynos chips with a 3nm design and an AMD RDNA-based Xclipse GPU, that will be used in the Galaxy S25 series.
