MediaTek Dimensity 1080 SoC announced for affordable 5G phones

MediaTek has announced yet another 5G-ready, mid-range SoC for Android smartphones called the Dimensity 1080. Based on its spec sheet, it is a watered-down version of the MediaTek Dimensity 1050 that aims to power lower-mid-range devices in the US$300 bracket. MediaTek says that Dimensity 1080-powered smartphone will begin hitting shelves sometime in Q4 2022.

Starting with the CPU, the MediaTek Dimensity 1080 features a tried and tested dual-cluster configuration with two ARM Cortex-A78 cores clocked at 2.6 GHz and six Cortex-A55 cores at 2.0 GHz. It is fabricated on TSMC's N6 process node and uses an ARM Mali G68 MP4 GPU. The chip also includes MediaTek's HyperEngine 3.0 networking engine which lets users play games on one 5G-enabled SIM and attend to phone calls via the other. LPDDR5 memory and two-lane UFS 3.1 storage are also supported.

The MediaTek Dimensity 1080 can support one 200 MP camera sensor. Its ISP allows users to record 4K HDR videos in real time. Additionally, displays with FHD+ resolution and 120 Hz refresh rate are supported. While that seems like the bare minimum in 2022, devices running a Dimensity 1080 will likely fall on the lower end of the price spectrum and presumably use a lower-specced panel.

Connectivity options include SA/NSA sub-6 GHz 5G networks, 2CC-career aggregation, Wi-Fi 6, and an unspecified version of Bluetooth. MediaTek has also thrown in its third-generation AI processing unit (APU) into the Dimensity 1080. The lack of mmWave 5G support isn't surprising, given that the network is available only in a handful of locations and usually reserved for higher-end hardware.