Google & MediaTek Partner For A Chip With Native Thread Support

In recent years, Google has been working on establishing Google Home as a major smart home platform. The company thinks that Thread and Matter are key to the future of the segment, so it has been working hard to add support for them. In line with that, Google and MediaTek announced at CES 2025 a partnership to develop a new Filogic connectivity chipset with a native Thread radio.

MediaTek is one of the leading names in the semiconductor industry. The company not only makes SoCs, but its technology is present in wireless data transmission chips. MediaTek’s Filogic lineup includes the company’s Wi-Fi solutions.

Google and MediaTek will launch a Thread-supported Filogic connectivity chipset

It seems that Google saw in Filogic chips the potential to accelerate the implementation of the Thread standard in the industry. Thread is a protocol designed for smart home device intercommunication. While it’s faster and more efficient than Bluetooth and WiFi, it needs its own radio. Since Google doesn’t make connectivity chips, they can’t push the industry to use the protocol more on their own. So, they’ve turned to MediaTek as a partner to achieve it.

The Filogic MT7903 chipset from MediaTek and Google will be an “all-in-one” wireless package. It will support tri-band Wi-Fi 6E, Bluetooth 6, and IEEE 802.15.4/Thread radios. It will also work with Matter, a standard that lets devices made for different smart home platforms work together.

The chip will also boast energy efficiency thanks to the Thread border router offload feature. With this tech, the main SoC can go into a low-power mode without losing its connection to the network of smart home devices. There are no details yet on the availability of the chip, but we will probably have more news on that soon.

Google’s efforts to expand Thread adoption

Google has already done its part by integrating native Thread support into Android 15. Its Pixel 9 devices also feature Thread radios, though not much use at the moment. The latest Google TV Streamer includes a Thread radio that, combined with the recently added Google Home support for Google TV, can turn it into the hub of your Thread-based smart home ecosystem. Android TV 14 already supported the protocol, but there wasn’t a tool that could be used to take advantage of it.