This will put the chip designer in a direct fight with Qualcomm.

MediaTek said its new Dimensity 9000 chip will be the world's first to use Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing "N4" chipmaking process, which helps makes chips smaller and faster. MediaTek said it will also be the first smartphone chip to feature a powerful new computing core from ARM called the Cortex X2.

MediaTek is one of only three firms in the world that makes 5G smartphone chips – the other is Samsung and Qualcomm. Huawei which also made its own phones was forced out of the market by the US government which was worried the Chinese were getting too powerful for its companies to compete.

Huawei's exit set off a scramble by Android smartphone makers to capture its market share. MediaTek partners with Xiaomi, Oppo and Vivo as customers, but many of those brands use MediaTek for their low and mid-tier devices and rely on Qualcomm for higher-end models.

David Ku, MediaTek's chief financial officer, said the 9000 chip was the first in what will be a series of chips aimed at persuading those customers to switch to using MediaTek in their flagship devices.

"We need to have a very strong army to march into the segment. One product is not enough - this is our starting point", Ku said.

MediaTek hit $10 billion in revenue for the first time last year, and Ku said it expects to hit $17 billion in revenue this year. He said that while 4G smartphone chips sometimes sold for $10, 5G chips can sell for $30 to even $50.