Will source chips from India for the world: MediaTek's Finbarr Moynihan

Finbarr Moynihan talks about MediaTek's India strategy, automotive play, and its alliance with Nvidia

Taiwan-based MediaTek, a global fabless semiconductor company, is in competition with its main rival, United States-based Qualcomm, across the world as well as in India. Finbarr Moynihan,  US-based vice-president (corporate marketing) of the company, tells Surajeet Das Gupta in New Delhi about MediaTek’s India strategy, automotive play, and its alliance with Nvidia. Edited excerpts:

 

Makers of devices in  India say sales of mobile phones are slowing because 4G customers are not upgrading to 5G quickly because of the huge gap in prices. And this can be bridged if chip makers bring down chip set prices. What’s your take on this?

 

Yes, the number of smartphones sold every year is not increasing. This has been fairly consistent for the last couple of years, the replacement cycles are becoming longer, and people are holding to their phones longer and they have a life beyond the first user too.

 

But one must understand that there will always be a gap between prices of 4G and 5G phones. A 4G phone will always be more affordable than a 5G one. So it’s not practical to think we can make 5G cheaper than 4G. All we can do is keep pushing the 5G line further down.

 

5G phones use more advanced technology like 5- to 3-nanometre (one nanometre in one-millionth of a metre) chips, which are expensive. We started with 7 nanometres for 5G to reduce the price gap and then went on to lower nanometre chips. In 4G we have phones from 12 nanometres, which are affordable, to 6 nanometres, which have a lot of features. 5G phones require more processing power, more multimedia, and more cameras to deliver the experience to the customer. To put all that together, there will always be a price gap. That will never go.

 

By when do you see all 4G customers upgrading to 5G in India?

 

My feeling is 4G will not disappear overnight. It will be there for the next five years --maybe it will be 10 per cent of the market. A 4G LTE gives a good experience. It still brings broadband capability to a lot of people, and there is a lot people can do on a 4G phone today.

 

India will soon have semiconductor companies manufacturing fabs in India. Will you source from them for the country’s requirements?

 

There is no reason why we will not outsource chip production from India once semiconductor units start production. We do not own the factories that make chips for us. We source chips from Taiwan, South Korea, China, Singapore, and Europe not only for their own markets but also for the world, and we will do the same thing for India as long as they are globally competitive. India will be part of our global supply chain.

 

Globally you are making a big pitch in the automotive market. You entered this area in India a year ago. How has been the progress?

 

We see opportunity. Even this week we were showcasing some cars — the Tata Punch and the Skoda Slavia — which have included some of our solutions on in-cabin experience and connectivity. There’s a well-established auto industry in India. In this country there’s an engineering capability that can build these solutions. There’s a lot of software and hardware capability. We have a partnership with Jio Things and have launched the digital smart cluster and smart module for the two-wheeler market. Electric vehicles (EVs) powered by the cluster include the Honda Kinetic, Kinetic Green Flex, and Green E Luna.

 

There is also a big opportunity in non-EVs too as well as in internet of things solutions in EV-charging stations, which is going to be an infrastructure that has to get built not just in India but all over the world. All these need smart, intelligent, connected platforms. And then there are opportunities for smart cockpits, smart cabin and connectivity, and telematic solutions for cars. I think it’s all going to be important.

 

What about autonomous car solutions? Are you working on that?

 

We have tied up with Nvidia here and are working jointly to develop a smart cockpit solution -- the product will be sold by Mediatek. Nvidia has a range of solutions for autonomous ADAS (Advanced Driver Assistance Systems) up and down — the stack from high-end to entry. So we will partner them for that kind of a solution. We will do the infotainment, mapping, multimedia — all of the displays in the cabin. We will bring this solution everywhere, including India. The smart cockpit will be available to customers for sampling soon and it will be in cars, probably by 2027.