MediaTek makes chips for various devices including DVD players and televisions, but they’re most known for their mobile phone chips that go into the millions of Chinese made handsets that never leave the country. The Nokla clones we make fun of all the time, those are made with MediaTek chips inside. Those dual SIM, triple SIM, and other insanely unique devices, again, they all use MediaTek. Sure they’re not the fastest chips around, nor the most power efficient, but their purpose is to serve the needs of the people who are not satisfied with what the top 5 mobile phone vendors are putting out.
How much longer until the number one mobile phone maker in China is a local Chinese player instead of Nokia is too difficult to really say, but it’s going to be a hell of a lot easier now that MediaTek has access to some of Qualcomm’s WCDMA, known by most folks as 3G, patents. MediaTek has yet to release any chips that support 3G, which can be either be blamed on the Chinese operators taking too long to get 3G off the ground, or the fact that building a 3G chipset isn’t the easiest of things to do. Either way, expect to see the clones out of China get even more interesting, and you may even see some fresh handset designs you wish were available in your country.