Rumors are swirling about MediaTek's upcoming Dimensity 9400 chipset, and if it turns out to be true, then we are facing a remarkable milestone in smartphone technology. According to recent reports, the Dimensity 9400 is set to have a whopping 30 billion transistors, a 32 percent increase over its predecessor, the Dimensity 9300, which had 22.7 billion transistors.
Another reason for curiosity is the alleged die size of the Dimensity 9400. Leaks suggest that the chipset will have an impressive size of 150mm², surpassing even some desktop GPUs. To put this into perspective, NVIDIA's GT 1030 only has a die size of 74mm², while the GTX 1650 has a die size of 200mm².
This unprecedented scale for a smartphone processor promises significant benefits, including increased transistor density, larger cache and a more robust Neural Processing Unit. While the significant die size and transistor count could drive up production costs, potentially making the Dimensity 9400 MediaTek's most expensive smartphone SoC to date, the potential performance gains could offset the financial burden.
Rumors suggest a 20 percent improvement in GPU performance over the previous generation, potentially surpassing even the upcoming Snapdragon 8 Gen 4. As with any groundbreaking innovation, challenges are inevitable. Earlier reports suggested that the Dimensity 9400 faced overheating issues and high power consumption due to ARM's Cortex-X5 core. But the increased die size could be MediaTek's solution to allay those concerns, although official confirmation has still not come on the new information.