MediaTek to foray into making chipsets for the automative industry

Image Credit: REUTERS

By tech2 News Staff /  30 Nov 2016 , 14:45

MediaTek is known for making chipsets for smartphones, connectivity, home entertainment and IoT devices. The company has today announced its new plan to foray into the automotive industry in the beginning of Q1 2017.

According to the company, the market for connected and autonomous vehicles is growing rapidly and there is need for advanced technologies that offer a blend of power-efficiency, processing power and affordability. MediaTek believes that with its technology expertise in chipset design. It positions the company well to bring innovative multimedia, connectivity and sensor solutions to the automotive industry.

MediaTek solutions for automobile manufacturers will cover four key areas, including:

• Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (Vision-based ADAS): Reimagined from the ground up, MediaTek’s ADAS system will feature cutting-edge, decentralised Vision Processing Unit (VPU) solutions to optimally handle large amounts of real-time visual streaming data. MediaTek employs Machine Learning to increase the accuracy and speed of detection, recognition and tracking, making it more comparable to human decision-making performance.
• Precision Millimeter Wave (mmWave) Radar: MediaTek is drawing on its technology expertise and heritage in high frequency RF and connectivity, bringing the automotive industry mmWave radar solutions that use higher frequencies to gain better object resolution and more precise detection. Residing in the high frequency band, mmWave radar can recognise targets more accurately and is more resistant to fog, rain, snow and other weather conditions than current types of radar.
• Superior In-Vehicle Infotainment: MediaTek has developed powerful 2D and 3D processing technologies to ensure its application processors perform at the highest levels of efficiency and speed. MediaTek in-car entertainment solutions offer a high level of integration of navigational and multimedia features and connectivity options.
• Enhanced Telematics: MediaTek Telematics is a robust solution to handle a variety of high-bandwidth information transfers and can support a wide variety of connectivity standards (Cellular 4G/3G/2G, Wi-Fi, BT/BLE ) and map-based applications. MediaTek Telematics offerings align with the company’s core strengths: power-efficiency, highly integrated system-in-packages, broad networking and connectivity support.

“The demands of connected and autonomous vehicles require a unique portfolio of technologies. MediaTek’s core competencies create a natural progression for us to design for the future of driving,” said JC Hsu, Corporate Vice President and General Manager of the New Business Department Business Unit at MediaTek.

“We have a strong technology portfolio generated from $10 billion in research and development investment over the past 12 years from modem and RF advancements, computing technologies and connectivity to intelligent algorithms. We are developing semiconductor solutions to make an impact in the automotive industry and are focused on core areas of in-vehicle Infotainment, Telematics and safety ADAS to further the evolution toward autonomous driving. The complicated systems of tomorrow’s high-tech cars will require a high degree of integration, innovative power management and improved functionality to support both the highest level of safety demands and driving experiences consumers need. MediaTek will bring one integrated package of semiconductors to the market – a holistic solution that is now lacking in the auto industry.”

Samsung starts 10nm SoC production, speculated to come on Galaxy S8

By tech2 News Staff /  17 Oct 2016 , 15:04

Tech giant Samsung Electronics Co Ltd said on Monday its system chips business has started mass production of semiconductors using 10 nanometer technology, adding it was the first company in the industry to do so.

Samsung said in a statement a tech product launching early next year will use chips made with its 10-nanometre production technology without specifying the device.

South Korea’s Electronic Times reported this month that Samsung will be the sole contract manufacturer of Qualcomm Inc’s high-end Snapdragon 830 chips using 10-nanometre production technology and these processors will be used in half of Samsung’s next Galaxy S smartphones expected to launch in early 2017.

“The industry’s first mass production of 10nm FinFET technology demonstrates our leadership in advanced process technology,” said Jong Shik Yoon, executive vice president, Head of Foundry Business at Samsung Electronics.

According to Samsung, the 10nm FinFET process uses advanced 3D transistor structure and allows a 30 percent increase in area efficiency and 27 percent increase in performance. There’s also a 40 percent lower power consumption said Samsung. “We will continue our efforts to innovate scaling technologies and provide differentiated total solutions to our customers.”

SoCs with 10nm process technology will be used in digital devices launching early next year and are expected to become more widely available throughout 2017.

With inputs from Reuters

MediaTek announces MT2511 and MT2523 SoC for wearables

  13 Oct 2016 , 19:16

Taiwanese semiconductor company MediaTek on Thursday announced two new system-on-chips (SoCs) specifically targeted towards the health, fitness and wearables market in the country.

The MT2511 is MediaTek’s first bio-sensing analog front-end (AFE) chipset that is in-built with an exclusive heart beat interval technology and 4KB SRAM that optimises the overall system power consumption for sleep heart rate monitoring.

The MT2523 is designed for active and fitness smart watches, consists of micro controller unit and helps deliver high-efficiency signal processing functionality at low power and low cost with ease-of-use benefits.

“MediaTek has always focused on combining power with efficiency and we are leading the charge in bringing this know-how to IoT products in India,” said Kuldeep Malik, Country Head, Corporate Sales International, MediaTek India, in a statement.

The MT2523 is also embedded with a GPS, dual-mode Bluetooth, and a MIPI-supported high-resolution mobile screen.

End products powered by MT2511 and MT2523 are expected to land in the country by early 2017.