Why is MediaTek so popular among global TV manufacturers?

Smart TVs are replacing traditional TVs as the center of home audio-visual entertainment. According to data from Aowei Cloud Network, by the end of 2019, there were 590 million color TVs in China, of which 270 million were smart TVs, with a penetration rate of 48%.

As smart TVs continue to occupy more homes, the brain of smart TVs - chips are also evolving. MT9638 is the latest 4K smart TV chip released by MediaTek recently. Compared with the many 4K TV chips released by MediaTek before, MT9638 further focuses on AI capabilities, integrates an independent AI processor APU, and supports AI super resolution (AI-SR), AI image quality enhancement (AI-PQ), AI voice assistant and other intelligent functions.

When it comes to MediaTek, most consumers may be more familiar with its mobile phone chip products, such as the Dimensity 1200, Dimensity 1100 and Dimensity 1000 series, which are positioned as flagship 5G SoCs. In fact, MediaTek has a higher market share in the field of TV chips and has long been a dominant player. According to data from Omdia's survey, global TV shipments in 2020 have exceeded 223 million units, while data from another third-party research organization shows that MediaTek has shipped more than 100 million smart TV chips in 2020 alone.

As Chen Junkun, General Manager of MediaTek's Smart Home Business Group's TV Business Unit, said at the press conference, MediaTek has been deeply involved in the field of TV chips for more than 20 years and has formed a technological leadership in AI applications, audio-visual game entertainment experience, smart life and other fields. MediaTek has shipped more than 2 billion sets of TV chips worldwide, and has reached cooperation with internationally renowned TV manufacturers such as Samsung, Sony, and LG, as well as domestically renowned TV manufacturers such as TCL, Konka, and Skyworth. At this press conference, partners such as Hisense, Skyworth, and Xiaomi also came to support it and fully expressed their recognition of MediaTek's TV chips.

With smart TV brands caught in a fierce red ocean competition, why has MediaTek's TV chips become the common choice of global TV manufacturers?

Targeting pain points and designing precisely No matter how innovative smart TVs are, they must not be divorced from the actual needs of users. The rapid popularization of entry-level large-screen smart TVs in recent years has effectively stimulated consumers' demand for extended usage scenarios, such as playing games on large-screen TVs. At the same time, for traditional movie-watching and entertainment scenarios, consumers also have higher experience expectations for smart TVs.

This will inevitably put forward higher requirements for TV manufacturers. When smart TVs have reached the upper limit of a certain price range in terms of hardware, the support at the algorithm level is very critical. MediaTek has achieved alignment with user needs at the chip level, so it is recognized by many TV manufacturers as the first choice for cooperation.

Take the recently released MT9638 as an example. MediaTek has fully considered the core usage needs of end users at the chip design level. Taking the movie viewing entertainment scene as an example, the user's pain points are often unclear and unsmooth pictures, and the sound performance is not immersive.

In fact, the real picture quality of most online content is quite worrying. The reason is that there are limited HD and UHD content, and most content is still in standard definition, so the viewing experience on many 4K TVs today is not good. The MT9638's AI-SR, AI-PQ, MEMC motion compensation and other technologies can work together to optimize each frame of the picture when the user is watching the movie, so as to output the best overall experience. Among them, AI-PQ uses artificial intelligence to identify content scenes, and adjusts the color saturation, brightness, sharpness, motion compensation and intelligent noise reduction of the picture frame by frame for different scenes, thereby improving the overall picture quality.

The AI-SR technology improves the resolution of the original image through multi-frame fusion, making the picture clearer, and can also combine with MEMC motion compensation to provide users with a more exciting 4K viewing experience. For movie lovers, they are often most concerned about audio-visual details, and the AI ​​capabilities of these chip layers can obviously meet this delicate demand very well.

The gaming scene is even more special, because many games not only have relatively high requirements for pictures and delays when running, but also have very strict requirements for network speed and stability. However, many smart TVs perform very poorly in gaming scenes, with stuck pictures and high delays, which greatly affects the gaming experience.

The many solutions that come with MT9638 solve these problems well. The chip supports Wi-Fi 6 technology, HDMI 2.1 and other functions. In addition, MT9638 is also equipped with a full set of gaming TV technology solutions including VRR, automatic low latency mode, Freesync and G-sync technologies, allowing users to fully enjoy the pleasure of TV games while playing games.

In addition, in response to consumers' growing demand for social and interactive TVs, the MT9638 is equipped with AI voice assistant and AI video call functions, allowing users to fully experience the novelty of efficient interaction with the TV and the convenience of socializing on a large-screen TV.

In summary, the functional design of MT9638 can be said to be very consistent with the rigid needs of current consumers in different entertainment scenarios. For major TV manufacturers, such a targeted chip is obviously very attractive. Deep customization, strengthening competitiveness Facing the consumer needs of different markets, MediaTek has currently released more than ten smart TV chips with different positioning, from 8K flagship, 4K flagship, 4K mainstream to entry-level, basically achieving full coverage. Such a rich chip product layout provides differentiated choices for TV manufacturers with different goals, allowing them to design and layout products according to their own strategic needs.

In addition, based on its long-term technology accumulation in TV chips and market data accumulation of over 2 billion shipments worldwide, MediaTek also has the service capability to provide complete product solutions. This is mainly reflected in meeting the market expansion needs of TV manufacturers, that is, MediaTek will not only consider customers' global expansion strategies and localization needs, but also provide customers with value-added functions on standard product solutions, thereby helping customers quickly develop a sense of product differentiation and competition, and deepening their long-term strategic development system.

In other words, MediaTek can enhance the localized and differentiated competitiveness of customers through standardized and flexible value-added product solutions to meet the differentiated needs of customers in different regions around the world, helping users quickly enter new markets or strengthen their existing market positions. For example, the S900 smart TV flagship chip released by MediaTek last year supports 8K decoding and Wi-Fi6 technology. Skyworth used it to create a social TV, and OPPO's first high-end TV also used this chip.

It can be seen that MediaTek can deeply customize differentiated smart TV products for TV manufacturers with different needs based on the same standard chip solution. For the complex global TV market, such product service capabilities are undoubtedly very much needed by TV manufacturers. Believe in long-term technology Whether it is launching chip products that meet the core needs of users or providing customized service capabilities for TV manufacturers, there is one thing in common, that is, it requires strong technical capabilities as a foundation.

However, the technical development of TV chips is not simple. Li Datang, product director of the TV business unit of MediaTek's Smart Home Business Group, said in an interview that it usually takes more than two years from specification definition to design, tape-out, verification, platform system development, and finally to mass production for customers. It can be said that the chain is very long and the investment is huge.

Therefore, it is roughly estimated that more than 20 years has created an average of about ten chip development cycles for MediaTek. With the continuous improvement of technology and design, each generation of chips will be significantly improved over the previous generation, which has also laid an extremely solid foundation for the continuous evolution of MediaTek's TV chip technology.

However, MediaTek has not slowed down due to the long development cycle. On the contrary, it will maintain a faster chip launch frequency than its competitors. In Li Datang's view, this will allow MediaTek to "respond to the market more quickly and meet the needs of customers and users more accurately."

It is worth mentioning that in addition to smart TVs, MediaTek also provides technical solutions for smartphones, laptops and tablets, cars, speakers and other terminals. The rich service terminal ecosystem has also strengthened MediaTek's overall technical system and consolidated its cross-terminal ecological service capabilities in the era of the Internet of Everything. For example, MediaTek's self-developed AI processor APU has been used in both smart TV chips and smartphone chips.

Overall, MediaTek has accumulated multi-dimensional TV chip technology, especially in the core smart technology of smart TVs. MediaTek has formed a comprehensive technical solution including AI-AQ, AI-PQ, AI-SR, and AI voice, which can fully meet all the imaginations of top TV manufacturers such as Samsung, Sony, and TCL for TV chip products.

The core supporter of industry evolution Back to the question at the beginning, MediaTek's smart TV chips are favored by global manufacturers and even become the first choice. The fundamental reason is that it can not only understand the pain points of consumers and ultimately design highly targeted products, but also meet the needs of different TV manufacturers in market expansion, product differentiation and other aspects, becoming their right-hand man to win the market.