On December 16, 2021, under the attention of a large number of netizens, MediaTek held a new product launch conference for their new generation of top flagship mobile phone SoC - Tianji 9000.
In fact, for the TSMC 4nm process used by the Tianji 9000 this time, the new generation architecture based on the ARM v9 instruction set, the largest cache design in the Android flagship SoC, and the technical parameter information such as the Mali-G710MP10 GPU that supports ray tracing, we have already had a very detailed analysis of the content before. So in contrast, today we want to discuss with you some of the details that appeared at today's conference that may not have been noticed by too many people.
The ISP with the strongest computing power in history has been "condescended" in actual use?
Although the performance of the Tianji 9000 is very strong, it may obviously be a very interesting topic to say which part has a greater lead compared with the competitors.
On the one hand, from a pure numerical point of view, the most impressive thing about the Tianji 9000 this time may be its Imagiq 790 ISP with a throughput of up to 9 billion pixels per second. At least from the current stage of public information, the ISP throughput of competitors at the same level has just reached 3.2 billion pixels per second.
Then the problem is that higher ISP throughput is mainly reflected in the actual use of two major benefits. The first is to support higher pixel cameras and higher frame rate video shooting, and the second is based on stronger multi-frame continuous shooting and synthesis capabilities, supporting better night scenes, capture, picture foreign object removal and other functions.
However, in today's conference, we found that the ISP of Tianji 9000 does allow it to support ultra-high-specification cameras of more than 200 million pixels, and it does enable it to achieve the function of shooting 270FPS triple exposure HDR video with three cameras at the same time. But in addition, when it comes to night scenes, sports capture, and camera pixel processing, MediaTek does not emphasize the role of ISPs in these functions.
In fact, when the Tianji 9000 processes these image data, it actually uses APU to carry out, and the super strong ISP has been "left out" to a certain extent.
Why is that? On the one hand, this is because the APU of Tianji 9000 has also achieved a super high computing power and energy efficiency ratio. That said, using it to run AI imagery algorithms is not only better in sharpness than ISPs relying on throughput to hard "stack" multi-frame synthesis, but also more power-efficient.
On the other hand, this actually involves a key design idea of mediatek Tianji 9000. That is, according to the use of the use of intelligent scheduling of different functional modules, through the active use of higher energy efficiency ratio of the calculation module for auxiliary calculations, so as to reduce the load of components with low energy efficiency ratio, and then to achieve the overall power saving efficiency optimization of the "global energy efficiency optimization" technology.
For example, as we mentioned earlier, in some photo scenes, Tianji 9000 will use APU instead of ISP for image optimization calculations, which is a typical example.
In addition, in the video playback scene, the Tianji 9000 can also use APU to overdivide the lower-definition video to 2K resolution in real time, which is more power-saving than directly decoding 2K ultra-clear video.
Not only that, but the same "mode" can also play a role in the game. Through the super-resolution processing of APU, it can not only reduce the GPU load, reduce the power consumption of the game, but also make the average frame rate higher and more stable.
Tianji 9000 "inside" model mystery, you get to it
If you often pay attention to the soC launch of major brands of mobile phones, you may notice that in terms of product naming, this year's two blockbuster masters have made no small changes.
Please note that we are not talking about the product naming that can be seen on the surface such as "Snapdragon 8 Gen1" and "Tianji 9000", but the naming logic of each soC's internal functional modules.
On the one hand, qualcomm released the Snapdragon 8 Gen1 at the same time, obviously diluted the independent naming of this SoC internal function module. For example, its GPU official name is now called "Adreno", instead of "Adreno 780", and other components such as Hexagon DSP and Spectra ISP have also canceled the number label in the original name on Snapdragon 8 Gen1.
Why does Qualcomm do this? The official answer given in the previous interview was that the naming rules of the product line were greatly adjusted, so the digital naming method of the internal components was also abandoned.
But on the other hand, when MediaTek released the Tianji 9000, we noticed that they began to add digital labels to the functional components in the SoC. In addition to the "Imagiq 790" ISP mentioned above, the APU (AI processing unit) in the Tianji 9000 is named "APU 590" and the DPU (display processing unit) is named "MiraVision 790".
Why is MediaTek doing this? At least so far, we haven't gotten an official response. But from the perspective of market impact, giving the function modules inside the SoC independent numbers will have at least two benefits. First, it can further highlight the identity of these modules as MediaTek's "self-developed technology products"; second, consumers who pursue configuration and like research technology can see at a glance the strength and weakness of different SoCs in the specifications of each functional module, as well as the technical inheritance relationship.
To put it more simply, not assigning a clear digital model to each of SoC's internal modules is actually harmless in itself, but adding it can reflect a straightforward and likely to be the "technical confidence" corresponding to long-term product planning.
In addition to higher performance, we are more concerned about the industry reaction
Finally, let's talk about the biggest difference between the Tianji 9000 conference and the previous overseas conference, that is, MediaTek has many partners to support this matter.
It can be seen that today's appearance at the MediaTek Tianji 9000 conference includes representatives of the three major operators of mobile, Unicom and Telecom, as well as executives of Samsung Semiconductor and Sony Semiconductor in charge of CMOS business, and of course, the head of Tencent's game research and development department. These can be said to represent partners in different fields, affirming MediaTek's wireless technology, imaging technology, and gaming technology today.
Of course, in addition, the guests who appeared today are naturally indispensable to the representatives of major mobile phone manufacturers, including OPPO, vivo, Redmi, and glory, which is equivalent to announcing that they will launch a new machine based on Tianji 9000 at the first time. At the end of the press conference, the speech from the representative of Jingdong made a strong endorsement for the hot sales of MediaTek's new flagship from the perspective of sales.
Recalling the release of the Tianji 1000+ in 2020, when only one manufacturer made an interactive response at the first time, it is not difficult to find that for example, the situation of "stars holding the moon" at today's Jie 9000 conference actually reflects the word of mouth and market expectations that MediaTek has gained in recent years. With the support of these partners, to some extent, it will undoubtedly help Tianji 9000 to achieve a more perfect level than the current level in terms of performance tuning, game optimization, 5G signal level and standard compatibility.