C A S E

S T U DY

The Value of SoC
Collaboration: HowArm, MediaTek andvivo are Redefining
Flagship SmartphoneExperiences1

Contents
01 Enabling the Best Flagship Smartphone Experiences
02 Addressing the Key Challenges and Requirements
03 Optimizations Through Collaboration
04 True Collaborative Mobile InnovationC A S ES T U D Y

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Enabling the Best Flagship
Smartphone Experiences
Bringing Arm’s leading-edge IP and solutions to life requires close
collaboration with a range of partners across our industry-leadingecosystem. This is especially true on mobile where Arm works closelywith MediaTek (the silicon vendor), vivo (the device manufacturer) andother ecosystem partners, like Android and our community of 15 million
application developers, to deliver flagship handsets and user experiences
to market.
From CPU to GPU to software, Arm, MediaTek and vivo worked together
to ensure the highest quality implementation of the Arm Cortex-X4 andCortex-A720 CPUs, and Immortalis-G720 for MediaTek’s Dimensity 9300
system-on-chip (SoC) and then selected as the chipset for vivo’s X100
and X100 Pro flagship smartphones. This was built around vivo’s demands
for optimum user experiences on flagship smartphones based on thefollowing requirements:— Longer battery life
— More immersive mobile gaming— Faster application launches— Better web browsing— A more fluid UI— Advanced security

Throughout the system-on-chip (SoC) development process,vivo provided feedback to Arm and MediaTek’s engineering teams based onthese requirements. This allowed Arm and MediaTek
to keep making performance improvements across the SoC during thedevelopment process.
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Addressing the Key Challengesand Requirements
On the CPU, Arm worked extensively with MediaTek from the early
prototype stage right through to silicon development and tapeout, withvivo’s ongoing feedback via silicon testing supporting this process. Arm’sengineering teams also worked with vivo and MediaTek to perform deep
dive CPU modelling tasks exploring system performance and power
consumption on the Dimensity 9300 to see how any SoC thermaland power challenges could be addressed.
On the GPU, Arm and MediaTek spoke extensively with vivo about
their expectations around performance and what they wanted to achievethrough the key mobile gaming use case. It was clear that GPU performance
was about sustained performance, rather than just peak performancealone. Both MediaTek and vivo wanted to “supercharge” mobile gaming withimmersive visual experiences combined with long battery life for untethered
gaming ‘on-the-go’. For vivo, it was also important to look ahead to future
mobile use cases, with Arm’s engineering teams working closely with thedevice manufacturer to prepare its smartphones for the next generationof gaming and graphics features through Arm’s extensive GPU roadmap.
The collaboration between Arm, MediaTek and vivo aimed to bringbetter security and software across the mobile ecosystem. On security,
this required close engineering collaboration between Arm, MediaTek, vivo
and Google on Android to facilitate the implementation and adoption ofArm’s leading security technologies to benefit developers and end-users,
like Memory Tagging Extension (MTE). On software, the Arm engineering
teams wanted to identify any bottlenecks in applications that would
affect performance on the X100 and X100 Pro smartphones, so worked
closely with vivo through sharing optimizations based on Arm’s long-term
collaboration with Google on the Android operating system.
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Optimizations Through Collaboration
MediaTek decided upon a highly optimized CPU design of using only Arm“big” cores (four Arm Cortex-X4 CPU cores and four Cortex-A720 CPUcores) in the Dimensity 9300 SoC. This led to leading-edge performance
improvements across the board compared to the previous generation
Dimensity 9200 SoC, including.
— 33 percent less power consumption at the same performance level— 40 percent higher peak performance

For the end-user, this means faster web browsing, quicker app loading,longer battery life, and faster, cooler AAA mobile gaming experiences— all of which matched the key requirements from vivo.
On the GPU, MediaTek’s Dimensity 9300 adopted Arm’s latest flagshipGPU, Immortalis-G720. The graphics and computing capabilities
of Immortalis-G720 fed into a range of performance improvements
compared to the previous generation Dimensity 9200 SoC, including:— 46 percent GPU performance boost while remaining at the same levelof power consumption— 40 percent reduction in GPU power consumption

For the end-user, this means they get a big performance upgrade without
sacrificing battery life for longer gameplay on mobile. Moreover, the focus
on sustained performance supports seamless multi-tasking on smartphones,
like gaming and video streaming at the same time. These core features
supported MediaTek and vivo’s desire to “supercharge” the mobile
gaming experience.

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Arm’s MTE was seen as an important security technology and developerfeature to bring better, more secure developer experiences through making
it easier to find memory safety bugs that account for 70 percent of all
software vulnerabilities. Arm worked closely with MediaTek to implement
MTE on Dimensity 9300, with Google already enabling the technology
on Android 14. Vivo then announced a new memory safety developer
program, which makes MTE available to its developer community. All of
this work provides improved code robustness, safety and security for thevivo application ecosystem, which ultimately delivers better softwareand user experiences on the X100 and X100 Pro smartphones.
Arm, MediaTek and vivo worked together on a software collaboration
to deliver CPU and GPU optimizations that resulted in higher frame
rates alongside significant performance gains in vivo’s Chromium-basedbrowser. When ‘pinch points’ in applications on the X100 and X100 Pro
smartphones were identified, Arm engaged with Google on best practiceguidance that would help developers improve application performancein response to these bottlenecks. These will feed through to the entire
Android mobile ecosystem for improved application experiences.

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True Collaborative Mobile Innovation
The engineering capabilities of Arm and MediaTek alongside the strong
collaboration with vivo, which reflects the company’s core requirements,
has resulted in leading-edge mobile performance that brings faster, longer
running handsets and better overall user experiences.

“Arm is a longstanding and trusted partner of MediaTek, and we haveworked together for many years to deliver on innovations that give way tounmatched optimization and acceleration for each new generation of SoCs.
Our collaborative efforts with Arm in the development of the MediaTek
Dimensity 9300 have helped ensure supercharged performance, improved
power efficiency and better security.”— JC Hsu, Corporate Vice President and General Manager,
Wireless Communications Unit, MediaTek

Arm’s work with the ecosystem is then helping to provide improved
developer experiences that are translating to better, more secure
software on vivo’s X100 and X100 Pro smartphones.

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All these collaboration efforts combined create true mobile
innovation. From faster web browsing to more immersive AAA mobile
gaming, the collaboration to integrate TCS23 successfully is delivering
improvements that continue to push the boundaries of performanceand efficiency on the SoC and satisfy vivo’s mission to deliver better,longer device experiences via its flagship handsets.

“Collaborating with our partners on the vivo X100 has allowed us to push theboundaries of what is possible in the smartphone industry. By leveraging Arm’s
technology and our mutual expertise, we were able to deliver a truly innovative
product to the market.”— Yujian Shi, Senior Vice President & CTO at vivo

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