MediaTek announces the SoC of dimensions 1100 and 1200: A78 on 6 nm

Today, MediaTek announced two new high-end SoCs in the form of the new Dimensity 1100 and Dimensity 1200. The two new models follow on from last year’s Dimensity 1000 SoC which marked the company’s return to the top. range in 2020, with a relatively solid SoC design.

The two new chipsets improve the Dimensity 1000 in terms of processor configuration and camera capacity, as well as the arrival of a new 6nm process node. However, the new chips do not upgrade all aspects of their designs, as things like GPU configuration and modem capabilities appear to be the same as the Dimensity 1000.

Starting from where we see the biggest changes, the two new SoCs differ the most from its predecessor on the processor side. The Dimensity 1100 is fairly straightforward in that it replaces the Cortex-A77 cores with newer Cortex-A78 cores. The setup still remains at 4 cores operating at 2.6 GHz (like the Dimensity 1000+ top bin), with four 2.0 GHz Cortex-A55 cores as smaller cores.

The Dimensity 1200 changes the setup to a 1 + 3 + 4 setup, with a performance Cortex-A78 core clocking up to 3.0GHz, and MediaTek stating that it sports double the L2 cache compared to other cores. That would mean it has a 512KB configuration while the other 3 cores have 256KB of L2. The 1 + 3 large-core configuration also comes with 4x Cortex-A55 cores at 2 GHz.

The GPU side of things is a bit odd, as oddly enough, it features the exact same setup as the Dimensity 1000, and we again see a Mali-G77MP9 setup on both new chipsets. This is very strange considering that other competing chipsets are rolling out new Mali-G78 designs.

DRAM capacity remains at LPDDR4X at 2133 MHz – the lack of LPDDR5 isn’t too surprising here given that the performance gains aren’t too great and these chipset designs need to be used in more cost-effective devices.

The NPU and AI capabilities aren’t exactly clear on the Dimensity 1100 and it appears to be the same as the Dimensity 1000 – the Dimensity 1200 advertises a 12.5% ​​performance increase, which might just be a slight upgrade from clock frequency compared to its predecessor.

Regarding the camera capacities, the new chips do not change their multi-camera configurations, still being at 32 + 16MP, but both increase the capacity advertised for a single camera up to 108MP and 200MP respectively for the Dimensity 1100 and Dimensity 1200.

On the 5G modem side, we don’t see any apparent change in the specs supported by the new design, it is still a less than 6 GHz implementation.

The new chip is manufactured on a new 6nm process node at TSMC – a design-compatible shrinkage compared to the 7nm node used in the Dimensity 1000.

Both the Dimensity 1100 and Dimensity 1200 are rather odd SoC designs in that they are more of a small upgrade over their predecessor – in fact, looking at them, you’d think it wasn’t. ‘These are only minor refreshes when redesigning their predecessor. It is also very strange to see the very small disparity in functionality between the 1100 and 1200, although these should be different chip designs and band outputs given their processor differences. The fact that MediaTek hasn’t upgraded the NPU / APU or GPUs in a substantial way also indicates that these would rather be small design upgrades from the previous generation. This isn’t much of a downside per se, but it does raise the question of what MediaTek’s market plan is for new SoCs.

MediaTek cites vendors such as Xiaomi, Vivo, OPPO and realme as expressing support for the new SoCs, with devices using both SoCs expected to be available at the end of the first quarter and the start of the second quarter of this year.

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