MediaTek Dimensity 9200 is first soc without support for 32bit apps

Chip designer MediaTek has announced its Dimensity 9200 soc. It is the first soc for smartphones without support for 32-bit apps. The soc can only run 64-bit software, the manufacturer says.

This eliminates support for older apps and games that do not have 64-bit support. The Google Pixel 7 has no software support for 32bit software, but the Tensor G2 soc does. Socs for smartphones have been supporting 64bit for years, but until now, socs could also continue to run 32bit software.

The Dimension 9200 is also the first soc with an Arm Cortex X3 core, running at 3.05GHz. In addition, the CPU cluster has three Cortex A715 cores at 2.85GHz and four energy-efficient Cortex A510 cores at 1.8GHz. The GPU is an Arm Immortalis G715, an upgrade compared to the Mali G710 of the Dimensity 9000.

The soc also supports UFS 4.0, where the Dimensity 9000 comes to UFS 3.1. Both socs support Lpddr5x memory, but the 9200 comes to 8533Mbit/s, where the 9000 comes to 7500Mbit/s.

On the camera front, the Dimensity 9200 can handle 8k videos at up to 30fps, something the 9000 can’t. Many expensive Android smartphones offer that possibility, especially now that almost all manufacturers use high-resolution cameras. For 8k videos, a camera of at least 33 megapixels is required.

MediaTek has the soc made at TSMC on the second generation of its 4nm process. The Dimensity 9200 should appear in phones by the end of this year, says the chip designer. Competitor Qualcomm is expected to announce its rival Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 next week.