[News] MediaTek Reportedly Eyes U.S. Production with TSMC; Dimensity 9500 Targets Apple A19 Pro

According to Nikkei, MediaTek may produce some chips at TSMC’s Arizona plants, a plan Corporate Vice President JC Hsu said is still under consideration and could involve automotive products or other “sensitive” applications.

This marks the first time MediaTek has signaled plans to join TSMC’s “Made in the U.S.” initiative—a strategy aimed at manufacturing locally in the U.S. while factoring in potential semiconductor tariffs, Economic Daily News reports, citing JC Hsu. Hsu also noted that MediaTek’s foundry partnership with Intel remains on track and that further strategic collaboration is not ruled out, the report adds.

MediaTek Debuts Dimensity 9500 Built on TSMC N3P

Alongside hints of possible U.S. production with TSMC, Nikkei reports that MediaTek has launched its flagship 5G chipset for agentic AI, the Dimensity 9500, for smartphones. Built on TSMC’s N3P process, its single-core performance is said to rival Apple’s A19 Pro, according to Commercial Times.

As noted by Commercial Times, the Dimensity 9500 debuts a new all-big-core CPU architecture and integrates the SME2 matrix instruction set for on-device real-time inference. The chip adopts a dual-NPU design that enhances AI capabilities, making it the first to support a compute-in-memory (CIM) NPU architecture, which can lower power consumption, as the report indicates.

The report adds that smartphones powered by the Dimensity 9500—vivo’s X300 and OPPO’s Find X9 series—are set to be unveiled on October 13 and 16, respectively, and will launch in the fourth quarter.

MediaTek’s Plan to Produce on TSMC’s 2nm

Meanwhile, according to Economic Daily News, MediaTek previously announced that its first flagship system-on-chip (SoC) built on TSMC’s 2-nanometer process has completed tape-out, making it one of the first major companies to adopt the technology. The 2nm chip is scheduled for trial production in the third quarter of 2026 and mass production in the fourth quarter, as highlighted by Commercial Times.

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(Photo credit: MediaTek)