MediaTek’s first 5g soc only supports low frequencies

Processor designer MediaTek has presented its first 5g-soc. The Dimensity 1000 only supports 5g on frequencies lower than 6GHz. Support for mmWave frequencies is not in the new soc.

The Dimensity 1000 supports download speeds of up to 4.6Gbit/s and upload speeds of up to 2.5Gbit/s, according to MediaTek. Many networks in Asia and Europe will initially operate at lower frequencies, as they offer much better coverage. The mmWave frequencies around 25GHz offer much higher speeds, but have much less range. Some 5G phones that manufacturers have announced in recent months, such as the Samsung Galaxy A90 5G, have already omitted mmWave support.

The soc has four Cortex A77 cores at 2.6GHz and four A55 cores at 2GHz, assisted by a Mali G77 GPU with an unknown number of cores. MediaTek has the chips produced at 7nm. The soc supports ‘full HD+ screens’ at 120Hz and cameras with a maximum resolution of up to 80 megapixels. That is lower than the 108 megapixels of the large 1/1.33 “sensor from Samsung. It is already in the Xiaomi Mi Note 10 and will probably also be in the Samsung Galaxy S11. MediaTek says nothing about supported memory and supported storage types.

The Dimensity 1000 should appear in smartphones from the end of this year or early next year. It is unknown which manufacturers have started working with the soc. Xiaomi, among others, used predecessor Helio G90T in its Redmi Note 8 Pro. MediaTek announced Monday that it is collaborating with Intel on 5G modems for laptops.