Eight Is Just Not Enough For MediaTek, 10-core Helio X20 Chip Goes Official

MediaTek, the popular Taiwanese mobile chipmaker, has released a 10-core processor, which is set to give a top spot to the company in the smartphone arena.

The Helio X20 chip, which will be launched towards the end of this year, MediaTek is integrating 10 cores into three groupings, with Dual 2.5GHz ARM A72 cores for the most power-consuming tasks and the other two quad-core cluster for less power consuming tasks.

It has been quite a while since ARM (semiconductor design firm) is making noise about setting one group of cores for performance tasks and the second group when less energy is required. Although, MediaTek has initiated the plan with three arrangements of cores, which as touted by the company can conserve up to 30 percent off a standard execution of ARM’s “big.LITTLE” modus operandi.

Mohit Bhushan, MediaTek’s head of U.S. marketing, says,“They run more power efficiently without losing any performance. We are certainly moving away from the whole image of being a low-cost provider,” MediaTek has made its way into low-end smartphone business, however, it is still struggling to compete with Qualcomm’s blooming position in the segment of high-end smartphones.

The Helio X20 chip also has supports for micro controller to take voice input, two major cameras, high-resolution 2K displays and also handle music playback without the need to fire up the two main processors. Bhushan also accepted the fact that Qualcomm still has an upper hand in LTE modem technology, but he also added that the gap is shrinking with time.

MediaTek couldn’t make a major breakthrough into the U.S. market because of the performance lag in the 4G LTE department. It somehow managed to ship its chipset at T-Mobile with the Alcatel Pop Astro LTE phone from Alcatel OneTouch. Due to a lack of support for the high-end features, MediaTek failed to get through AT&T and Verizon. With the forthcoming chips, Bhushan believes that MediaTek has a fair chance to get through another top notch carrier in the U.S by next year.

Zara Ali
Categories: Cellphones
Tags: MediaTek, Qualcomm