Taiwanese companies MediaTek and TSMC have unveiled what they call the world's first 7-nanometer 8K digital TV flagship system-on-chip (SoC), the MediaTek Pentonic 2000. The world’s first ultra-high-resolution 8K TV chips will power next-generation TVs expected to hit the global market in the second quarter of 2022.
The Pentonic 2000 chip reportedly offers artificial intelligence engines, motion estimation and motion compensation, versatile video coding and picture-in-picture technologies.
"Compared to TSMC’s 16nm process technology used in consumer electronics applications, its N7 process provides a 30% speed improvement or 55% power reduction and over three times the logic density," the company said in a press release.
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Bright displays and sharp audio
Featuring the TV industry’s fastest CPU and GPU, the Pentonic 2000 has an ultra-wide memory bus, uses universal flash storage 3.1 and supports wireless connectivity for Wi-Fi 6E or 5G modems.
The chip’s built-in high performance MediaTek APU (AI processor) powers MediaTek’s new 8K AI-Super Resolution technology that upscales lower-resolution content to the display’s native resolution, while also performing real-time image quality enhancements.
"The Pentonic 2000 puts MediaTek at the forefront of smart TV design with its ability to offer consumers rich, crisp images, bright displays and sharp audio, as well as a smart and intuitive user experience,” Dr Mike Chang, Corporate Vice President and General Manager of the Smart Home Business Group at MediaTek was quoted as saying.
“By adopting TSMC’s N7 process, MediaTek is bringing technology capable of supercomputing applications into the living room to give consumers the next generation of media experiences,” said Dr Kevin Zhang, Senior Vice President of Business Development at TSMC said.
Tailor-made for streaming era
Pentonic 2000 is the first commercial 8K TV chip with Versatile Video Coding (VVC) H.266 media support, which offers improved compression efficiency – something that is essential for the streaming era.
Pentonic 2000 is also said to support Dolby’s latest imaging and audio technologies such as Dolby Vision and Dolby Atmos. Additionally, the chip supports AV1 for streaming services and all global TV broadcast standards including the latest ATSC 3.0.
MediaTek’s chips are used in nearly 2 billion TVs per year including by Oppo Mobile Telecommunications, LG Electronics, Samsung Electronics and Vizio Inc in North America.
TV-related chips contributed about 14% to MediaTek’s revenue of $4.72 billion last quarter, while mobile phone chips accounted for 56%.
