MediaTek's first 5G chipset will be announced on November 26

Qualcomm has dominated the 5G chipset market space in 2019, with the vast majority of 5G smartphones packing 5G-enabled Snapdragon chipsets. But 2020 promises a more competitive market, with Samsung and MediaTek emerging as the primary challengers. Samsung has already announced multiple 5G chips for premium and mid-range devices and, now MediaTek is getting in on the act.

The Taiwanese semiconductor company recently confirmed the launch date of its first 5G chipset. MediaTek’s first 5G mobile platform will arrive on November 26 at the MediaTek Summit. The upcoming 5G chip will rely on the Helio M70 5G modem, which relies on the sub-6GHz frequency to deliver 5G connectivity.

According to the company’s roadmap, the Helio M70 modems are expected to arrive in the markets in the first quarter in 2019. MediaTek also disclosed images of the new chip without revealing any hardware details. Based on the promo images, the chip will have the model number MT6885Z.

GSMArena cross-referenced the model number with previous reports and learned it would be based on the 7nm FinFET process. The report also suggested that it will be a flagship-grade chipset, and not the more affordable SoC MediaTek announced earlier this year at Computex 2019.

Apart from the sub-6GHz frequency, the other specs could include Coretex-A77 CPU and Mali-G77 GPU cores, third-gen AI processing engine and camera support up to 4K video recording at 60fps and 80-megapixel.

MediaTek will likely bring a mid-range 5G-enabled chipset in the second quarter in 2019. However, it will face stiff opposition from the likes of Samsung and Qualcomm, the latter already confirming 5G-connectivity will come to both the Snapdragon 600 and 700 series.