MediaTek announces Dimensity lineup of 5G chipsets with dual 5G support and Wi-Fi 6

Not long after announcing its partnership with Intel, MediaTek has officially unveiled its new SoC linup with 5G support. The chip maker calls it Dimensity and the Dimensity 1000 5G is the first SoC of the lineup. Built on the 7nm process, MediaTek claims its new 5G chipset offers the most power-efficient 5G of any other mobile SoC. Since 5G is integrated, the chip doesn't take up as much space as a chipset + 5G modem solution.

Our Dimensity series is a culmination of MediaTek's investment in 5G and positions us as a leader driving 5G development and innovation. Our 5G technolog goes head-to-head with anyone in the industry... We chose the name Dimensity to highlight how our 5G solutions are driving new waves of innovation and experiences, much like the fabled fifth dimension. - Joe Chen, MediaTek President

The new chipset supports 5G 2 carrier aggregation and is the first so support dual 5G SIM. It's capable of up to 4.7 Gbps downloads and 2.5 Gbps uploads over 5G frequencies below 6 GHz. Wi-Fi 6 and Bluetooth 5.1 are supported from the start.

Dimensity 1000 5G SoC specs:

• Clock speed: (4 x Cortex A77 @ 2.6 GHz) + (4 x Cortex A55 @ 2.0 GHz)
• 5G modem: 3GGP Rel. 4.7 Gbps down, 2.5 Gbps up via sub-6 GHz frequencies; NR TDD / NR FDD Bands; *SA / NSA
• 4G modem: TDD/FDD, 4x4 MIMO; 256 QAM; WCDMA, TD-SCDMA, CDMA 1X, EV-DO, GSM / EDGE
• Memory: 4-channel LPDD4x, up to 16GB
• Connectivity: Wi-Fi 6 (2x2 801.11 ax); Bluetooth 5.1; GPS, Glonass, Beidou, Galileo, QZSS, NavIC, Dual *Band L1 + L5 GNSS
• Display: QHD+ @ 90 Hz; DisplayPort support
• Video: 4K @ 60fps; H.264/265/VP9/AV1; Multi-frame Video HDR
• Still imagery: 5-core ISP; up to 80 MP @ 24 shots per second; 32 MP + 16 MP dual camera
• APU: 3rd-gen 5-Core
• Misc: Supports Dual SIM: 5G+5G, 4G+5G, and 5G+ 4G

With its 5-core ISP (Image signal processor) the Dimensity chipset can capture up to 80 MP at up to 24 shots per second. It also supports a 32 MP + 16 MP dual-camera combo. The chipset also enables 4K video @ 60 fps and for the first time on a mobile chipset, there's support for Multi-frame video HDR.

Performance-wise, the Dimensity 1000 reached over 480,000 on Antutu and 12,096 on GeekBench 4.2. By comparison, devices with the Snapdragon 855+ scored around 490,000 and around 11,000, respectively. The chipset is aiming to compete directly against the high-end Qualcomm SoC's like the Snapdragon 855 and 855+. With Wi-Fi 6 as the next standard in home internet, MediaTek claims it performs 38% faster than Wi-Fi 5 on the Snapdragon 855 and consumes 40% less power.

The high-performance cluster of the Dimensity chipset is capped at 2.6 GHz while its Qualcomm competitor is clocked at 2.84 GHz. Although MediaTek could have clocked this cluster higher, it would come at the cost of power consumption.

MediaTek says we can expect to see these chips make it to devices headed to the US in the second half of 2020. China and other Asian markets will likely be the first to see devices with Dimensity chips before eventually breaking out to other markets. Its also worth noting that these chips don't support mmWave as they only work with sub-6 GHz frequencies, but MediaTek did say it would develop another product with 5G mmWave support down the line.