The chip designed to succeed the Dimensity 920 enjoys support for 200-megapixel sensors like the one introduced by Samsung not long ago – and not much beyond that
Since smartphones with new Dimensity chips that are numbered in the thousands format started appearing, it’s quite difficult to continue to be excited about Mediatek’s older Dimensity chips that are numbered in the hundreds format – but it seems that the chip developer from Taiwan is working to continue upgrading them and does not plan to abandon them in the foreseeable future.
The fresh Dimensity 1080 that was presented to the world in masterly silence is a good example of the planning that is emerging for the coming year – including a transition from a model number of hundreds to a model number of thousands, as the logical replacement for the Dimensity 920 that has starred in quite a few intermediate devices since the end of 2021.
According to the publication on Mediatek’s website, the updated chip is based on the same TSMC N6 manufacturing process as its predecessor, with an array of a pair of large and powerful Cortex-A78 cores at a frequency of up to 2.6GHz (a modest increase of 100MHz compared to the maximum operating frequency in the Dimensity 920). , six small and economical Cortex-A55 cores with a frequency of up to 2GHz and a built-in Mali-G68 MC4 graphics core that may have also received some frequency boost, although this is not something that receives any official reference at this point.
The Dimensity 1080 supports 1080p displays with a refresh rate of up to 120 Hz, dual-channel wireless Wi-Fi 6 connectivity, Bluetooth 5.2, modern internal UFS 3.1 storage with a pair of communication channels for theoretical transfer speeds of up to 2,900MBps, in LPDDR4X or LPDDR5 memories , in 5th generation connectivity at sub-6GHz frequencies with a theoretical maximum download speed of up to 2.73Gbps – and 200 megapixel photo sensors like Samsung’s ISOCELL HP3 thanks to an improved image processing engine from the Imagiq series (perhaps the Imagiq 780 model, as in Dimensity 8000?), which is actually the most significant addition to the product.
The most challenging part now will be trying to understand how the Dimensity 1080 corresponds with the Dimensity 930 and the Dimensity 1050 – a pair of other intermediate chips that the company introduced a few months ago and may be superior to the new one in at least some features, despite the numbers in their model name that seem to indicate Because they stand in a lower part of the hierarchy.
The Dimensity 930 is based on the same manufacturing process as the N6 and includes a pair of Cortex-A78 cores with a maximum frequency of 2.2GHz, which is lower than both the Dimensity 920 and the Dimensity 1080 – and a built-in BXM-8-256 graphics core from Imagination Technologies whose performance The relative against ARM’s own Mali-G68 cores is not yet clear to us.
The Dimensity 1050, on the other hand, includes a pair of Cortex-A78 cores with a frequency of up to 2.5GHz as in the Dimensity 920, a newer generation Mali-G610 MC3 graphics core both in relation to the Dimensity 920 and in relation to the Dimensity 1080, Wi-Fi connectivity support Advanced wireless 6E, support for FHD displays with a refresh rate of up to 144 Hz, a more advanced computational learning acceleration engine from the Mediatek APU 550 model and a built-in 5G modem with support for mmWave frequencies which give it maximum theoretical download speeds of up to 4.6Gbps. Doesn’t this model deserve to be placed above the Dimensity 1080 in question, despite its support for photo sensors up to “only” 108 megapixels? You are welcome to judge and decide for yourself.
The Dimensity 1080 chip is intended to appear in the first smart devices before the end of this year, near the time when we should also see models that will contain the Dimensity 930 and the Dimensity 1050 – and all of them together will probably accompany the mid-low mid-range market throughout 2023, in the hope that The next updates Mediatek will be able to put a little more order in the capabilities and characteristics of the various products that it offers to manufacturers and users.
