MediaTek drops efficiency cores in Dimensity 9300 Cortex-X4/A720 mobile SoC

MediaTek Dimensity 9300 is a premium octa-core 5G mobile SoC with two clusters of four Cortex-X4 cores and four Cortex-A720 cores, but doing without any Cortex-A520 efficiency core, plus the latest Arm Mali-G720 GPU, and a MediaTek APU 790 neural processing unit (NPU) capable of support generative AI and large language models (LLM) with up to 33 billion parameters.

Arm invented big.LITTLE and then DynamIQ technologies in order to mix cores with different power efficiency and performance characteristics in order to improve power consumption. Their latest launches included the Cortex-X4 premium core, Cortex-A720 performance/big core, and Cortex-A520 efficient/LITTLE core, but MediaTek decided to do without the Cortex-A520 in the Dimensity 9300 which strikes me as odd for a mobile SoC where power efficiency is important for a long battery life.

MediaTek Dimensity 9300 specifications:

Octa-core CPU with DynamIQ
- 4x Arm Cortex-X4 at up to 3.25GHz
- 4x Arm Cortex-A720 up to 2.0GHz
GPU – Arm Immortalis-G720 MC12
VPU
- Video Encoding – H.264, HEVC
- Video Playback – H.264, HEVC, VP9, AV1
AI accelerator – MediaTek APU 790 (Generative AI) accelerator supporting large language models with 1B, 7B, and 13B parameters and scalability up to 33B. This includes support for Meta Llama 2, Baichuan 2, and Baidu AI LLM.
Memory – LPDDR5T up to 9,600 Mbps
Storage – UFS 4.0 + MCQ
Display – 4K up to 120Hz, WQHD up to 180Hz
Camera
- Up to 320MP camera
- Video capture resolution – Up to 8K30 (7690 x 4320) or 4K60 (3840 x 2160)
Wireless connectivity
- Cellular
  - Sub-6GHz (FR1), mmWave (FR2), 2G-5G multi-mode, 5G-CA, 4G-CA, 5G FDD / TDD, 4G FDD / TDD, TD-SCDMA, WCDMA, EDGE, GSM
  - Functions – 5G/4G Dual SIM Dual Active, SA & NSA modes; SA Option2, NSA Option3 / 3a / 3x, NR FR1 TDD+FDD, DSS, FR1 DL 4CC up to 300 MHz 4×4 MIMO, FR2 DL 4CC up to 400MHz, 256QAM FR1 UL 2CC 2×2 MIMO, 256QAM NR UL 2CC, R16 UL Enhancement, 256QAM VoNR / EPS fallback
- Wi-Fi 7 (a/b/g/n/ac/ax/be) up to 6.5 Gbps with 2T2R antenna support, MediaTek Xtra Range for a longer range and Multi-Link Hotspot to triple the performance in hotspot mode against unnamed competitors
- Bluetooth 5.4
- GNSS – GPS, BeiDou, Glonass, Galileo, QZSS, NavIC
Security
- Secure Processor, HWRoT
- Arm Memory Tagging Extension (MTE) Technology
- CC EAL4+ Capable, FIPS 140-3, China DRM
Process – 3rd generation TSMC 4nm

MediaTek does claim power efficiency improvements for the Dimensity 9300 although those are all under load, and not in standby mode which may not be that important in a premium smartphone that people charge every day. So that must be why they didn’t include any efficiency cores as the benefits may not have been limited or simply not worth it.

The company notably highlights that the APU 790 AI processor doubles the integer and floating-point operations performance while reducing power consumption by 45%, and thanks to tweaks to the Transformer model can deliver up to eight times the performance of the previous generation, with image generation within one second using Stable Diffusion. On the graphics front, the Dimensity 9300’s Arm Mali Immortalis-720 GPU provides a 40% reduction in GPU power consumption at the same level of performance as the previous generation Dimensity 9200 or an almost 46% boost in GPU performance while at the same level of power consumption.

MediaTek also promises efficiency improvements for the CPU, but only for multi-core workloads with up to 33% power savings in that case. The company also noted a 15% increase in single-core performance and 40% in multi-core performance. The first Dimensity 9300-powered Android smartphones are expected by the end of 2023. Further details may be found on the product page and in the press release.

Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft)

Jean-Luc started CNX Software in 2010 as a part-time endeavor, before quitting his job as a software engineering manager, and starting to write daily news, and reviews full time later in 2011.