Mediatek Announces M80 Chip, With an Emphasis on 5G

Renowned Taiwanese chip manufacturer MediaTek Inc on Tuesday released a new 5G focused modem, which marks a very significant moment for the chipmaker since this is the first modem from the company to come with support for mmWave based 5G, something that its main competitor, Qualcomm already achieved.

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For those of you in the dark, alongside Qualcomm Inc and Samsung Electronics Co Ltd., Mediatek Inc is one of the handful suppliers of modem chips that aid devices such as smartphones to connect to cellular data networks. The company’s key customers include LG Electronics Ltd, Xiaomi Corp and more. With today’s launch, the company expects to see some growth in terms of sales, as it will finally be able to cater to customers in search of mmWave 5G based modems.

Till today, however, MediaTek’s 5G chips had been compatible with the “sub-6” variant of 5G, which is the variety being widely used in countries such as China. The sub-6 waves can give good speeds but, for the massive difference in terms of generation to generation, mmWave leads the charge.

Mediatek M80 5G Modem Specifications

Like the M80’s predecessor, the Helio M70, the M80 is an integrated modem, meaning that it will exist side-by-side alongside other components like the CPU, GPU and ISP. What sets these two apart is the inclusion of mmWave 5G, since the Helio M70 was the company’s first 5G modem, but it lacked support for mmWave 5G bands.

The MediaTek M80 has support for both modes of 5G, ie non-standalone and standalone 5G, with maximum download and upload speeds (theoretical) of 7.67Gbps and 3.67Gbps respectively.