MediaTek has newly released its 5G modem chipset solution, the Helio M70, to be fabricated using TSMC's 7nm process incorporating EUV technology, and will kick off official shipments in 2019 in a bid to secure a preemptive presence in the 5G market, according to a company announcement issued June 5.

MediaTek's planned volume production and official shipment for its new-generation modem chips will come at least six months ahead of their original schedule, demonstrating the chip designer's determination to speed up its deployments in 5G communication technologies. This also indicates that the business opportunities for 5G applications are beginning to ferment, industry sources said.

MediaTek CEO Rick Tsai said that his company's R&D teams are actively working to create for consumers the best user experiences associated with 5G and AI. He stressed that by leveraging its broad range of excellent IPs and chipset solutions, MediaTek can help ecosystems and customers roll out the best-performance terminal devices to jointly embrace bright business prospects in the 5G era.

The firm's president Joe Chen also indicated that MediaTek has done a good job in accelerating the popularity of smartphones with consumers worldwide, as it has always developed new solutions from the perspectives of consumers while maintaining close cooperation with smartphone vendors and telecom operators by providing its broad 4G application technologies.

In the deployment of 5G technologies and chipset solutions, MediaTek has earlier contacted Nokia, NTT Docomo, China Mobile and Huawei for technical cooperation and specs negotiation. Now with the rollout of the latest 3GPP Release 15 NSA 5G NR regulations, MediaTek has decided to roll out, ahead of schedule, its Helio M70 modem chip solution boasting a transmission speed of 5Gbps to support global smartphone vendors and telecom operators, according to Chen.

He stressed that MediaTek will not only seek to hit the 5G chip market with a bang in 2019, but will also significantly ramp up its shipments in 2020-2022 to build a solid presence in the market.