Amid a two-year recalibration in the smartphone and electronic component supply chain, inventory levels have rebounded to a healthy state. The infusion of new applications like AI and auto driving has fueled a comprehensive replenishment of consumer electronics inventory, propelling IC design with a surge in urgent and short orders.

Although wafer prices surged by over 40% during the pandemic, recent declines in utilization suggest an impending price reduction cycle to maintain operational rates, expected to lead to a reduction in IC design costs. Key players, boasting inventory turnover periods below a hundred days, are well-positioned for a potential upswing in demand, as reported by CTEE.

While most semiconductor companies are anticipated to experience declines in 2023, inventory levels have already tapered off. MediaTek boasts an inventory turnover period of just 89.11 days, with Realtek and ITE Tech at 96.77 and 84.11 days, respectively.

IC design companies emphasize the dominance of rush orders in the latter half of the year. Despite the uncertainty of economic visibility, confidence prevails regarding the new applications like AI, auto driving, and LEO(Low Earth Orbit) satellites, promising an upsurge in demand.

IC design companies also point out that the 3-5 year cycle of device replacement is imminent. The infusion of new AI applications and technological advancements in decision-making and workplace practices is expected to drive business demand. Positive developments, such as Microsoft discontinuing support for Windows 10, are anticipated to gain traction by 2024.

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According to anue’s news, during the recent MediaTek 2023 Summit, major IC design firm MediaTek held an overseas summit in the United States and announced a new collaboration with Meta. MediaTek will take charge of developing the chip for Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses, replacing the competitor Qualcomm’s Snapdragon AR1 Gen 1 chip.

Notably, in October 2023,  Meta launched the new generation of Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses. These feature the Qualcomm Snapdragon AR1 Gen 1 chip, a 12-megapixel camera, and 5 microphones for sending and receiving messages. It is the world’s first smart glasses with Facebook and Instagram live streaming capabilities, enabling the recording of high-quality videos.

MediaTek has long been dedicated to developing low-power, high-performance SoC. This collaboration with Meta focuses on jointly creating a custom chip specifically designed for AR smart glasses, meeting the requirements of lightweight and compact devices. The collaborative product, Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses, is expected to be launched in the future.

(Photo credit: MediaTek)

On November 6, 2023, MediaTek unveiled its latest flagship smartphone SoC, the Dimensity 9300. Benchmark data reveals that the Dimensity 9300 outperforms Qualcomm’s flagship chips in both CPU (multi-core) and GPU performance.

However, Qualcomm enjoys a strong brand reputation and recognition in the consumer market, making it a challenging task for MediaTek to capture the top market position for high-end SoCs in the Android camp with this chip.

TrendForce’s Insights:

1. Brand New Design Boosts Dimensity 9300 Benchmark Performance

Diverging from the conventional “big core + small core” architecture, MediaTek introduces a groundbreaking “4+4” design in the Dimensity 9300. This chip comprises 4 Cortex-X4 cores (clocking up to 3.25GHz) and 4 Cortex-A720 cores (running at 2.0GHz).

According to MediaTek’s official data, this new architecture delivers a 40% increase in multi-core peak performance compared to the previous-generation Dimensity 9200. Additionally, it achieves a 33% reduction in power consumption while maintaining the same level of performance.

In addition to its outstanding chip performance and energy efficiency, the Dimensity 9300 achieves a significant breakthrough in the field of AI. According to official data, powered by the seventh-generation AI processor APU790, the Dimensity 9300 achieves AI edge computing processing speeds up to 8 times faster than the previous generation. In practical terms, this means it can generate image content from text in less than 1 second.

Furthermore, through MediaTek’s exclusive memory compression technology, known as NeuroPilot Compression, it significantly reduces the memory footprint of AI Large Language Models (LLMs) on end-user devices. This enables smooth operation of LLMs with up to 1 billion, 7 billion, 13 billion, and even a maximum of 33 billion parameters on terminal devices.

2. Dimensity 9300 Outperforms, but Qualcomm Remains a Strong Contender

While Dimensity 9300 exhibits superior performance in both CPU (multi-core) and GPU compared to Qualcomm’s concurrent flagship Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 SoC, a consumer survey conducted by a well-known international tech product comparison website tells a different story.

Out of 1,833 valid respondents, even after being informed about Dimensity 9300’s better benchmark results, 946 people (representing 51.6% of respondents) still chose the Qualcomm chip with lower scores.

This is likely because major smartphone manufacturers have historically favored Qualcomm over MediaTek for their flagship devices. Qualcomm has built a stronger brand image and enjoys higher recognition in the market. Therefore, MediaTek faces a formidable challenge in its quest to capture the top spot for Android high-end smartphone SoC market share with Dimensity 9300.

Furthermore, since the current benchmark results are derived from engineering samples, and the ultimate products from smartphone manufacturers have not been officially released, it remains to be seen whether Dimensity 9300 can deliver the expected performance efficiency. The final verdict on its performance will depend on the adjustments and optimizations made by these manufacturers.

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• [News] MediaTek Unveils Dimensity 9300 AI Mobile Chip: Intensifying Competition in the Chinese Market

(Photo credit: MediaTek)

On November 6th, leading IC design company, MediaTek, introduced the Dimensity 9300, its latest flagship mobile System-on-Chip (SoC) featuring an innovative All Big Core design.

It incorporates groundbreaking technology to redefine flagship experiences in areas such as on-device AI, gaming, and imaging. The first smartphones to adopt MediaTek’s Dimensity 9300 chip are expected to hit the market by the end of 2023.

MediaTek’s next generation APU 790 AI processor is integrated into the Dimensity 9300 and designed to significantly improve generative AI performance and energy efficiency for faster and more secure edge computing. The APU 790 doubles the integer and floating-point operations performance, while reducing power consumption by 45%.

The APU 790 hardware includes a generative AI engine, enabling faster and more secure edge AI computations. It’s capable of accelerating operations on Transformer models, achieving processing speeds eight times faster than the previous generation and generating images within one second.

Moreover, in conjunction with large-scale language models, MediaTek has developed mixed-precision INT4 quantization technology, which when combined with the company’s NeuroPilot memory hardware compression, can more efficiently utilize memory bandwidth and significantly reduce memory requirements for large AI models.

The APU 790 provides support for NeuroPilot Fusion, which can continuously perform LoRA low-rank adaptation, and is capable of supporting large language models with 1B, 7B, and 13B parameters, with scalability up to 33B.

Additionally, MediaTek’s AI development platform, NeuroPilot, has built a rich AI ecosystem, supporting mainstream AI language models such as Meta LIama 2, Baidu ERNIE Bot, and Baichuan’s large language model, facilitating rapid and efficient deployment of multi-modal generative AI applications on edge devices, offering innovative user experiences in text, images, music, and more.

In terms of performance, MediaTek emphasizes that the Dimensity 9300 offers exceptional performance in terms of intelligence, efficiency, and low power consumption, all achieved through groundbreaking advanced technology. It sets the stage for a new flagship experience in generative AI, gaming, and imaging.

“The Dimensity 9300 is MediaTek’s most powerful flagship chip yet, bringing a huge boost in raw computing power to flagship smartphones with our groundbreaking All Big Core design,” said Joe Chen, President at MediaTek.

“This unique architecture, combined with our upgraded on-chip AI Processing Unit, will usher in a new era of generative AI applications as developers push the limits with edge AI and hybrid AI computing capabilities.”

MediaTek’s Over 40% Market Share in China Underscores the Vital Importance of the Chinese Market

Furthermore, MediaTek strategically chose China as the launch location for its latest flagship mobile chip. This decision reflects the long-standing partnerships with various Chinese smartphone brands and the fact that the Chinese market has consistently been a significant source of revenue for MediaTek.

For the third quarter of this year, mobile chips constituted 49% of the overall revenue, making a substantial contribution to the company’s earnings. Regarding geographical distribution, foreign securities firms have estimated that the Chinese market contributes to approximately 40% of MediaTek’s revenue, primarily driven by smartphone products.

Moreover, according to statements made by MediaTek’s Chairman Rick Tsai at the beginning of this year, following the introduction of the Dimensity 5G mobile chip series in 2019, MediaTek expanded its presence in the Chinese high-end smartphone chip market. Starting almost from scratch in 2021, it achieved a market share of 20% in 2022. The projection is that this trend will continue to rise this year.

In other words, the Chinese mobile chip market, particularly in the high-priced flagship mobile chip segment, remains a critical driving force for MediaTek. It presents a significant long-term competition challenge to Qualcomm, particularly as it enters the realm of generative AI business applications.

After Huawei’s breakthrough in 5G chipsets, enabling its return to the market with 5G smartphones, the sales of smartphones using Qualcomm’s 4G chipsets are bound to be affected, which, in turn, poses a challenge for Qualcomm. With the introduction of the 5G Generative AI mobile chipset Tianji 9300, the competition in the Chinese smartphone chipset market is expected to intensify.

(Photo credit: MediaTek)

Non-Apple IC manufacturers are reporting positive business performance this quarter. Chinese brands are experiencing a revival driven by the release of new Huawei smartphones, and a resolution in inventory clearance in emerging markets. This has led to an increase in orders. Additionally, Samsung’s success in foldable phones is contributing to the upsurge. This overall trend is benefiting companies like MediaTek and Novatek in the smartphone-related IC manufacturing sector.

As reported by CTEE, China holds about 25% of the global smartphone market, with industry analysts predicting sales of 260 million units in China for 2023. Huawei’s re-entry into the smartphone market will significantly impact the smartphone SoC market share in 2024. This development will challenge Apple’s market share in China, and Huawei’s upcoming Nova mid-range smartphones will also affect brands like Honor, OPPO, Vivo, Xiaomi, and others, as they vie for market share.

Key drivers of the smartphone industry’s recovery

According to Economic Daily News, many Chinese smartphone brands are optimistic about the local market’s improvement following the launch of Huawei’s new smartphones. Beyond flagship models like the Mate 60, mid-range series like Nova are also showing increased activity. Leading non-Apple smartphone manufacturers are gearing up for a surge in demand and are actively stocking up on top-tier flagship chips, thus stimulating the supply chain’s demand for additional orders.

At the same time, Taiwanese manufacturers mention that Chinese smartphone brands that primarily target emerging markets have already digested their accumulated inventory and are now starting to replenish their stocks. Some smartphone-related chip manufacturers have also pointed out that Samsung and other Korean smartphone giants are enjoying good sales of foldable phones and have recently conveyed messages about increasing orders.

TrendForce notes that the current revival on demand side in the global smartphone market is primarily driven by inventory restocking. The potential for sustained orders remains uncertain due to the prevailing economic challenges.

(Image: MediaTek)

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