MediaTek, Google reportedly deepen ASIC ties as SerDes race hits 448G

MediaTek’s deepening ASIC collaboration with Google reflects the inevitable shift toward customized AI acceleration. Technically, adopting 448G SerDes forces upgrades across packaging, PCBs, and power delivery—boosting demand for CoWoS—but also heightens signal integrity risks, potentially inflating yield management costs. Geopolitically, while circumventing U.S. AI chip export bans by targeting overseas data centers, the partnership remains vulnerable to regulatory scrutiny, necessitating supply chain redundancy. Facing NVIDIA’s Grace-CPU + NVLink integration and Broadcom’s post-VMware custom ASIC push, MediaTek must accelerate IP reuse to retain cost leadership. Within 18 months, securing a foothold in Google’s TPU ecosystem could redirect cloud infrastructure orders from traditional fabless vendors toward system-level solution providers, fundamentally reshaping value capture in the AI silicon stack.