MediaTek touted its 5G credentials, introducing a chipset it said is “designed to power the first wave of high-end 5G smartphones”.

Customer samples of the silicon will be available to customers in the third quarter of 2019, with commercial devices powered by the chips expected by Q1 next year.

The company said that full specifications will be available in the future, but added the system-on-chip package will be built using a 7nm process, feature MediaTek’s Helio M70 5G modem, includes Arm Cortex-A77 CPU, Mali-G77 GPU, and “MediaTek’s most advanced AI processing unit”.

It will target standalone and non-standalone 5G deployments in sub-6GHz bands.

Joe Chen, president of MediaTek, said: “Everything about this chip is designed for the first wave of flagship 5G devices. The leading-edge technology in this chipset makes it the most powerful 5G SoC announced to date and puts MediaTek at the forefront of 5G SoC design.”

While MediaTek’s announcement was light on detail, it is perhaps more significant as a statement of intent for the company, as the smartphone market moves to 5G with rival Qualcomm at the head of the pack.

When it was reported that Apple was struggling with Intel as its 5G chip supplier – before the iPhone maker signed a peace pact with Qualcomm – MediaTek was discounted in reports as an option due to question marks over its ability to deliver.

Apart from vendors which have their own silicon options – notably Samsung and Huawei – the 5G market is clearly being led by device makers using Qualcomm’s technology, due to its first-mover advantage and strong technology proposition.

But MediaTek is now asserting it will be ready for the market as 5G moves into the mainstream, both challenging Qualcomm and providing choice for vendors.