MediaTek aims to take on Qualcomm with new 5G chip

FILE PHOTO: MediaTek chips are seen on a development board at the MediaTek booth during the 2015 Computex exhibition in Taipei, Taiwan, June 3, 2015. REUTERS/Pichi Chuang/File Photo

Taiwan-based chip supplier MediaTek Inc released a new 5G chip for fast, high-end smartphones that aims to take on much larger rival Qualcomm Inc.

MediaTek is best known for making chips that go into smart speaker devices such as Amazon.com Inc's Echo units and for making the chips inside the more basic Android phones. Qualcomm's older chips also find their way into some of those low-priced phones, but the San Diego company is better known for supplying high-powered chips to more expensive Android phones such as Google's Pixel.