Reuters: MediaTek is working on a Windows-on-ARM chip for Microsoft

June 12, 2024

Microsoft has doubled down on its efforts to push Windows on-ARM into the mainstream with the latest series of Snapdragon X laptops from Microsoft itself, Samsung, Dell, HP and Lenovo. But the company wants to offer more diverse options to manufacturers – Reuters Reports suggest that Microsoft has tapped MediaTek to design a replacement chipset.

The chip will be based on the standard library of ARM cores, which will speed up the development process (Snapdragon X uses a CPU and GPU designed by Qualcomm). It’s not clear if MediaTek’s design is intended to qualify for the Copilot+ program, which requires at least 40 TOPS of AI compute power on the device.

We won’t see a MediaTek chip for Windows until late next year and not because of all the development time. Insiders say the timing depends on an exclusivity deal Qualcomm has with Microsoft, which won’t expire until 2025.

MediaTek already makes chips for Chromebooks (branded as Kompanio), which could serve as the basis for a Windows design.

As mentioned earlier, the MediaTek chip will use standard ARM parts, namely Cortex CPU cores and Mali/Immortalis GPUs. MediaTek is also helping Nvidia bring an ARM-based chip for Windows to market. However, these two projects are separate, insiders say.

In addition, last year, Reuters A report has been written AMD works too On an ARM-based chip for Windows. This will supposedly use Radeon GPU technology, similar to that currently used in Exynos chips (although the collaboration with Samsung has ended).

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