MediaTek has introduced a new flagship mobile processor built using TSMC's most advanced manufacturing technology, raising the pressure on rivals competing to put more artificial-intelligence capability directly inside smartphones.
The Dimensity 9600 Pro uses TSMC's 2-nanometre process. MediaTek is also launching the Dimensity 9600M on a 3-nanometre process, giving phone makers two new options aimed at the upper end of the market as manufacturers compete on performance, efficiency and increasingly elaborate AI features.
According to MediaTek, the 9600 Pro's neural processing unit delivers a 51% improvement in on-device generative-AI performance compared with its predecessor. That matters because more phone makers are trying to run AI tasks locally instead of sending every request to a remote data centre, where latency, connectivity and privacy can become part of the equation.
The new processors are expected to appear in forthcoming devices from manufacturers including Xiaomi, Oppo and Vivo. For MediaTek, that creates another opportunity to move further into the premium smartphone segment, an area traditionally associated with some of the industry's most expensive silicon and most aggressive performance claims.
The launch also arrives as MediaTek expands beyond phones. The company has been developing AI products for data centres and custom chip work, and its first AI accelerator for a major US cloud provider is expected to enter mass production later this year.
None of this changes the basic direction of semiconductor marketing, which has spent years marching through increasingly small process-node numbers. Five became four, four became three and three has now been joined by two, giving consumers the reassuring impression that the world's most advanced engineers are successfully making numbers disappear.
This creates a longer-term planning problem that has received surprisingly little attention. If the industry continues removing nanometres at this pace, executives will eventually confront zero. Procurement departments may wish to secure strategic reserves of unused nanometres before supplies become constrained.
Beyond zero, the outlook becomes less certain. Negative-one-nanometre manufacturing would require a processor to occupy less space than the absence of a processor, a development that could dramatically improve battery life because customers would effectively be purchasing a small hole in their phone.
For now, however, MediaTek still has two whole nanometres to work with. Analysts at The Questionable Times therefore consider the immediate shortage manageable, provided nobody launches a 1nm chip before lunch.