What do you think is this item? A book? Shelve display?
It’s a router, it’s discreet and nice as it doesn’t even look like one. Now, routers are so good they don’t look like one anymore and one company that keeps on minimizing the footprint is MediaTek.
Yup, the same company the provides smartphone processors are also the ones behind powering more than 60% of wireless routers in the world. Here you can see that they power routers from small 2.4GHz, dual-band 5GHz to even powerful routers with mesh capabilities and fast AC4300 speeds.
While not all routers are shown is available in the Philippines, it’s nice to know that we can still buy these over Lazada, Aliexpress or even Taobao.
Like this Winstars AC2100 whole Wi-Fi System can already provide full Wi-Fi coverage for a 2 story home. The wonder of a mesh system is that the router is the one that provides and decide the signal to the device, making the connection as much as possible strong instead of the device keeping the signal even though it cannot communicate anymore to the access point.
Why MediaTek? They provide the footprint for routers and the manufacturer like Belkin, ASUS, TP-Link, etc makes the overall look. They can put a single band or dual band antennas if needed.
Here you can see a small router inserted into a wireless repeater, the shape is needed for the antenna but as you can see that the main board is so mall. As for size reference, it’s almost as small as a 50 TWD coin.
Aside from Wireless devices, MediaTek is also the processor powering 4k TVs with Android pre-installed like Sony and more. The great part of MediaTek venturing into this field is their application of cleaning images can be implemented to other technology like smartphones.
One focus they are growing is the application of AI to identify items. Here you can see that a real-like pineapple is detected as fast as 32ms which are 1/3 of a second, giving processors fast time to react to needed situations.
One benefit is for cameras like dashcams that can detect lanes, better AI management with even integration of maps. Currently, the system is only available in China, but with more SDK support and even Google joining might enhance for worldwide support.
AI cameras will give better image production, as you can see here there are two dashcams with one without AI. The result is one is able to react to the harsh flashlight for better image detection, but with no tampering in the hardware at all. Meaning performance is improved cause of AI.
Overall, MediaTek is definitely powering a lot of devices in the world right now. With their improvement in technology integration and even AI will accelerate the capabilities of our devices currently doing without upgrading.
Hopefully with the entrance of 5G in the near future, we can see the maximized output of AI within MediaTek Processors.
