A few years ago, MediaTek shocked everyone by defeating market leaders Qualcomm and Samsung to take the top spot in the global mobile SoC market. Since then, the business has been cranking out new items at a fast pace to demonstrate that its recent successes were not just an accident that happened to coincide with the pandemic.
Although Qualcomm’s products, including the recently released Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 model, are still being challenged by MediaTek’s newest flagship Dimensity 9200 SoC, the Taiwanese chip manufacturer also intends to try its hand at Windows on Arm laptops given the success of the Kompanio line of low-cost Chromebooks and tablets.
At a recent executive event, where company executives discussed a US$40 billion possibility, MediaTek reportedly reiterated its aspirations to enter the Windows on Arm market. Aside from more potent Kompanio SoCs, which should offer a competitive alternative to Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8cx Gen 3 processor, MediaTek is also exploring producing 5G modems, Wi-Fi + Bluetooth cards, and displays ICs for laptops.
Additionally, MediaTek Vice President Vince Hu outlined the measures the business is taking to enter the PC market, saying that the company is to go from “the low-power sector to the high-power region” and that “larger investments as a foundational competency” need to be made in CPU and GPU technologies. These intentions, according to PCWorld, could indicate that MediaTek will attempt to create its processing and graphics cores internally, much like Apple does with its M processors, which are built using IP from ARM.
Adam King was hired by MediaTek to serve as the company’s client’s General Manager of Computing in order to further its Windows-on-Arm aspirations. King formerly held a position at Intel, where he was responsible for the sales of client platforms for 6 years, Gen 4 to Gen 6 notebooks, and processors for 4 years. King stated that “In the long term, the market will […] transition to Arm-based CPUs for power and area efficiency. “, which we estimate is “a lot of work” and “a lot of challenges to overcome.” There is no hint as to what to expect from the next Kompanio SoC.