MediaTek expands investment in ecosystem to drive IoT strategy

Global partnerships with Amazon, Tinitell, Apple, People Power and tender offer to Richtek to advance System on Chip shipments across multiple devices

LONDON – MediaTek, a pioneering fabless semiconductor company and a market leader in cutting-edge systems-on-chip (SoC), has announced a series of new partnerships designed to place cutting-edge technology into the hands of every global consumer, through an increasingly connected smartphone and home entertainment offering coupled with an expanding Internet of Things (IoT) business line.

At the annual executive forum in London, leaders from across MediaTek’s business, including Smartphones, Home Connectivity, IoT and Developer Community, made the following announcements:

• Partnership with Amazon for the latest devices - Amazon Fire TV is powered by MediaTek’s MT8173, a 64-bit quad-core processor and the world’s first multimedia SoC with ARM’s Cortex-A72 cores; Fire HD 8 and Fire HD 10 tablets powered by MT8135, an up to 1.5 GHz quad-core processor, resulting in a fast and fluid user interface, and smooth running HD videos and high frame-rate games.
• Tender offer to acquire Richtek Technology, a world leader in power management solutions to expand leadership in Power Management Integrated Circuits (PMIC) to strengthen its overall capabilities for the IoT business model. The deal is expected to close in Q2 2016.
• Commercialization of Tinitell, a long-standing partner of MediaTek Labs, which announced $1m of new funding to bring its award-winning wrist phone for children to the European market.
• Funding to People Power, a user engagement company providing apps, cloud and mobile services for IoT to further accelerate its penetration in the IoT market in both the U.S. and China, develop new IoT products based on its Fabrux and Influx software architecture.
• Release of two software development kits (SDKs) for Apple HomeKit, the framework in iOS 8 for communicating with and controlling connected accessories in a user’s home.

“Our heritage in cross platform technology provides us with deep knowledge of user demands and the need to create seamless connectivity across all forms of devices,” commented Chief Marketing Officer, Johan Lodenius. “Our strategy is to innovate widely available technology that provides integrated connectivity, while investing in and nurturing developers and the maker community to deliver practical yet innovative solutions that make the world a better place.”

As part of MediaTek’s IoT-enabled device leadership, the company supports startups who participate in MediaTek’s developer ecosystems. These include MediaTek Ventures, the company’s $300 million venture fund, and MediaTek Labs, a hub that connects third-party developers to MediaTek’s products, business development team and partners.

MediaTek also confirmed plans for its existing smartphone partners to ship approximately 40 million devices containing MediaTek SoCs into Western Europe this year, representing an approximately 25 percent regional market share. These shipments will include smartphones from LG, Sony, Acer and HTC, as well as home-grown smartphone makers such as Kazaam, Archos and BQ, which has just launched Europe’s first smartphone through the Android One community.

In London, MediaTek and ARM, which supplies MediaTek’s leading SoC processors, co-presented on how ARM technology brings new levels of efficiency to the diverse mobile needs of consumers tomorrow. The launch of the Tri-Cluster configuration with Helio X20, featuring Corepilot 3.0 demonstrates a close partnership model that allows for increasing levels of innovative breakthroughs by MediaTek.

Lodenius, added: “Our business is accelerating at scale, supported by the innovation of our global developer community and our investment in exciting new businesses like People Power. The future of the industry depends of flexibility. That’s what we offer. We will continue to build on our close alliances with global manufacturers to deliver leading technology that meets diverse customer needs, whether in or out of the home.”