Mediatek Dimensity 9400 SoC coming Q4 with advanced AI features

The MediaTek Dimensity 9300 chipset has an interesting configuration made up of four Cortex-X4 prime CPU cores and four Cortex-A720 performance CPU cores. Low power efficiency cores? Nah, they're for sissies. The Dimensity 9400 SoC is expected to be equipped with one Cortex-X5 Prime CPU core, four Cortex-X4 Prime CPU cores, and four Cortex-A720 performance CPU cores. Look, Ma. No efficiency cores once again.

Additionally, the chipset will be the first Dimensity component manufactured using TSMC's 3nm process node. To be sure, it will be the foundry's second-gen 3nm process node, the N3E, which should lead to performance improvements and/or more energy efficiency. Per China Times (via Wccftech), MediaTek CEO Rick Tsai said during a ceremony on Tuesday that the Dimensity 9400 application processor (AP) will arrive in Q4 and will have AI capabilities that will rival other chipsets.

MediaTek did not specifically refer to the chip as the Dimensity 9400 but it seems likely that Tsai was referring to the fabless chip designer's next flagship chip. The Dimensity 9400, like its predecessor, will support LPDDR5T RAM which is key to the chip's ability to run on-device AI features. The chip is expected to top the 33 billion parameter large language model of the Dimensity 9300. This should lead to enhanced AI capabilities for the chip.

The most obvious rival for the Dimensity 9400 AP is Qualcomm's Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 which will debut Qualcomm's own Oryon cores and will also lack efficiency cores like the Dimensity 9400. The Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 will also be produced by TSMC using its second-gen 3nm node.

 

Without any efficiency cores, there were concerns that the Dimensity 9300 SoC would overheat and indeed there were some rumors last September which of course, MediaTek denied. A stress test run on the Dimensity 9300 SoC showed that the chipset did throttle dropping performance by 46% after stress was introduced to the AP's cores. On the other hand, the chip does run the Vivo X100 series, and outside of the aforementioned stress test, there haven't been any major overheating issues that we can find. This bodes well for the Dimensity 9400 AP.