MediaTek allegedly working on a more powerful Helio X30 chipset

Taiwanese chip maker MediaTek known the world over for its chipset solutions which have mostly been for low-end smartphones and tablets but after the impressive performance by its Helio series chipsets Helio X10 and X20 in the mid-to high-range smartphones, it is providing tough competition to the likes of Qualcomm.

Its Helio X10 has been used in several mid-range handsets including HTC One M9+, Meizu MX5, Elife E8 and others. MediaTek announced its Helio X20 SoC in May this year which was the world’s first deca-core chipset for mobile.  Helio X20 will be making its debut inside the Chinese smartphone Elephone P9000 which is expected to launch in mid-October. It is also rumored that Xiaomi might use the MediaTek X20 Soc in its future high-end smartphones.

Even before the devices using X20 enter the market, there are reports from the Chinese media that MediaTek has started work on an even faster and more powerful chipset, the Helio X30.

The new Helio X30 will consist of 10-core architecture with a quad-cluster design having two Cortex-A53 cores clocked at 1GHz,  two Cortex-A53 cores clocked at 1.5GHz, two Cortex-A53 cores clocked at 2GHz and four Cortex-A72 cores clocked at 2.5GHz. In comparison, the Helio X20 has a tri-cluster design with four Cortex-A53 cores clocked at 1.4Ghz, four Cortex-A53 cores clocked at 2GHz and two Cortex-A72 cores clocked at 2.5Ghz.

The GPU of the Helio X30 will apparently be Mali-T880, an improvement over the Mali T-800 GPU of the Helio X20. In addition, the X30 will also support 4GB LPDDR4 1600MhZ RAM which was not there in the X20.

MediaTek is also tipped to be working on a Helio X22 SoC which will be a faster version of the Helio X20. It is not known when both the chipsets will be announced by the company. First devices carrying the new chips will probably make an appearance early next year.

MediaTek allegedly working on a more powerful Helio X30 chipset

Samsung Electronic and TSMC Compete to be the First Company to Produce 10nm Chipset

Samsung Electronic and TSMC (Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co Ltd) is competing to be the first company who produce 10nm process chipset.  Samsung Electronic has bypassed the production of 20nm chipset last year and went straight to produce 14nm chipset and thus the company secured orders from Apple and Qualcomm. This year, TSMC is skipping 14nm chipset production and going direct to produce 10nm chipset. Hopefully, by using this method, TSMC is able to secure orders from Apple and Qualcomm, two of the company’s biggest customers.

As reported by Taiwan’s local media, TSMC will start the risk production of its 10nm process chipset by second quarter of next year. Risk production can be seen as the final testing phase which is aimed to increase the yield rates before the full mass production.  The mass production is expected to be somewhere as early as second half of next year. The negotiation with Apple and Qualcomm is expected to be around this period too.

After the 10-nm foundry process is implemented, the clock rate of application processors (AP) is expected to be up 20 percent while the power consumption is expected to be down 40 percent compared to the 14nm FinFET process.

Samsung Electronic, on the other hand, announced that its 10-nm foundry process is made possible from the end of 2016 and that the company is planning to expand the market share of the existing 14nm FinFET chipset first. At the moment, it seems like TSMC is a step ahead in the race. TSMC is also reported to have invested US$1 billion on this 10-nm process chipset in order not to lose with Samsung Electronic.

However, there is still possibility that Samsung Electronic will push the production date to be earlier as to win order from Apple so that its performance can be improved. The company has unveiled the actual 12-inch wafer using its 10nm process in May 2015 which is seen as unusual move from the company.

Samsung Electronic and TSMC Compete to be the First Company to Produce 10nm Chipset

MediaTek to Boost 4G Chip Market Share in Second Half of 2015

MediaTek was known to manufacture components and drawing up designs for consumer electronic goods such as CD-ROM devices, DVD players and TVs before there were smartphones. As the smartphone market grows over the year, the company is known for manufacturing cheap 2G and 3G Chinese handsets. Now, the company is looking for a way to enter U.S. and Western Europe smartphone markets. However, it has Qualcomm as the main competitor which is not easy to defeat.

It seems like MediaTek is able to reduce the phone-design and the mass production cycle from one and a half years to only six months, which makes a lot of people happy. As a result, the company ranks 788 n this year’s Global 2000 list compared to 1029 about a year ago. Qualcomm on the other hand, ranks 158.  Top smartphone makers apparently still prefer to use Qualcomm’s Snapdragon SoC line in their flagship smartphones. Not to mention, Apple who likes to use their own product as much as possible is using Qualcomm’s modems in their iPhone. Samsung on the other hand, has started its own reference design program which is similar to MediaTek.

According to Forbes, the only way for MediaTek to enter US market is by sticking to Chinese smartphone manufacturers such as Xiaomi, Lenovo and Coolpad to use the company’s chip as these companies are set to enter the US market. Major carriers such as Verizon, AT&T and T-Mobile are reported to be testing on MediaTek 4G chips on their LTE network. Therefore, it should not take long before MediaTek able to enter the US market.

MediaTek to Boost 4G Chip Market Share in Second Half of 2015

Samsung Electronics Will Starts 10nm Chip Production in 2016

Samsung Electronics announced that the company would start to produce the latest 10nm chip in 2016 at the International Solid-State Circuits Conference (ISSCC) this year. On top of that, the company was also showcased how the wafer processed during the event.

There was not much information revealed about the new wafer, but it indicates that it will still use the fin-shaped field-effect transistors (FinFET) technology. The 10nm chip also will offer improvement on the performance of the device that uses it. The technology is designed to be used in variety of applications such as consumer electronics, mobile devices, computing, networking as well as data center infrastructure.

It seems like the specifications of the wafer fabrication process are more or less have been finalized and it is expected that the initial process design kits for 10nm should be ready by now. If everything is going as per scheduled, the first tape out will be ready by late of 2015. However, it is not confirmed whether there will be several versions of this 10nm manufacturing technology from Samsung.

According to Handel Jones, chief executive officer of International Business Technology, it seems like Apple will be the key consumer for the latest 10nm chips. If the chips are ready in late 2016, then most probably Apple will use it to make its own SoC chips for Apple’s 2017 smartphones and tablets.

Samsung Electronics Will Starts 10nm Chip Production in 2016

Additional details about HTC One M9 camera sensor and SoC clock speed leaked

HTC’s new flagship One M9 which is going to be unveiled on March 1 at the MWC in Barcelona, has seen numerous leaks up till now. Just recently we saw its renders, specs and other details leaked. Now a new leak has emerged, this time from Twitter that gives some additional details about the HTC One M9 specs.

According to the leaks, the new HTC flagship is supposed to have an improved 20MP rear camera. Spigen’s HTC One M9 cases appearing for pre-order on Amazon also confirmed it. Now this new tip by Roland Quandt claims “filling in the blanks” for the said phone regarding its 20MP camera. According to him, the camera will feature f/2.2 aperture and 27.8 mm lens. This means that the camera might not be Sony’s 20MP snapper that has been used in smartphones such as Xperia Z3 and Meizu MX4, but may be of some other make.

 

filling in the blanks on the HTC One M9: 20 MP cam, f/2.2, 27,8 mm Lens… Android 5.0.2 with Sense 7. Snapdragon 810 4×2.0 GHz & 4×1.5 GHz

— Roland Quandt (@rquandt) February 23, 2015

 

Another leakster Ricciolo tipped PhoneArena that the camera sensor in One M9 is made by Toshiba which is another big surprise from HTC after the huge 5X jump in its camera compared to One M8. This reliable tippster claims that the size of the camera sensor is 1/2.4” which is a little smaller than Sony’s.

 

@phonearena the MAIN M9 sensor is NOT from SONY… is made by TOSHIBA and 1/2.4 (slightly smaller than the Z3 etc)!

— Ricciolo (@Ricciolo1) February 23, 2015

 

Roland Quandt has also confirmed that the HTC One M9 will be powered by the latest Qualcomm Snapdragon 810 SoC. It will have 4 cortex-A57 cores clocked at 2GHz and 4 cortex-A53 clocked at 1.5GHz. The new HTC phone will run Android 5.0.2 with the company’s own Sense 7 UI on top.

Well, we will know for sure in a few days as the MWC 2015 is just round the corner.

 

Via PhoneArena

Additional details about HTC One M9 camera sensor and SoC clock speed leaked

LG is Working on A New Processor Equivalent to Snapdragon 810

Apparently nowadays smartphone manufacturers are developing their own processor for their latest smartphone models. Samsung’s Exynos processor has been powering up Samsung smartphone from Samsung S3 onward.  LG on the other hand, is not doing well with their chipset development. Its first chipset, NUCLUN which is embedded into LG G3 screen is having overheating issue. This resulted in the low sales of the device. It is also most probably one of the reason on why we will not see any new LG device which is powered by NUCLUN in the market anytime soon.

However, this did not dampen LG’s spirit to develop another chipset which is of Snapdragon 810 equivalent. There is not many information about this chipset, it was supposed to feature 4x Cortex-A57 cores alongside a Cortex-A53 quad-core unit. Unfortunately, it was also cancelled due to technical issue which led to overheating.

Recently, there are rumors that LG is working on the third chipset. The SoC will apparently use 4 Cortex-A72 cores which has the codename “Maya” and an additional 4 Cortex-A53 cores. According to the rumors, the CPU will be accompanied by an unspecified Mali graphics chip, but given the presence of a Cortex-A72 processor it is expected that the GPU will be a next-gen Mali-T880. The CPU will apparently be built by TSMC on a 20nm process.

There is no further information on the release date, however, the CPU was apparently pushed back 6 months. We assumed that the chipset will only be ready at the end of the year.

LG is Working on A New Processor Equivalent to Snapdragon 810

Intel introduces 5th Gen 14nm ‘Broadwell’ Core Processors offering improved graphics and battery life

Intel has been developing the 5th Gen ’Broadwell’ Core processors for a while now and the world’s largest chip maker has finally launched the 14nm Core processors at CES 2015. These processors will be used in Next Gen computing devices including Notebooks, Ultrabooks, 2-in-1s, Chromebooks, mini PCs and all-in-one desktop PCs.

The 5th Gen core processors offer improvements in battery life by 20% to 30% compared to the existing 22nm Haswell chips. For instance, while playing a video, the 15W Broadwell CPU will last about an hour and a half longer that the older 4th Gen version.

Under the 14nm process, the die size has reduced making the chips 37% smaller but they still pack 35% more transistors taking their total up to 1.3 billion. Intel claims that there is a 22% improvement in 3D graphics rendering and 50% improvement in strength of video encoding.

First Broadwell chips were announced under the ‘Core M’ brand last year, which were specifically meant for 2-in-1 devices, a unique combination of tablet and laptop. Now Intel has added 14 new processors to its Core i3, i5 and i7 series as well as new models to its Pentium and Celeron line ups. This is the first time that Intel is upgrading every category of its consumer CPU lineup all at once. 10 of Intel’s new Core chips run at 15W and the remaining 4 at 28W. The 28W processors use Graphics 6100 GPU while the 15W chips will have HD Graphics 5500 or 6000 GPU.

Along with this, Intel also unveiled ‘Cherry Trail’ the next gen 14nm processor for tablets. Cherry Trail features a 64-bit chipset offering Intel Generation 8-LP GPU, Intel modem and Cat. 6 LTE (up to 300Mbps), RealSense for 3D imaging, and face and fingerprint unlocking. Cherry Trail chips have started shipping and new products incorporating them will become available in the first half of 2015.

Intel’s new Broadwell chips are also now shipping but the bigger 28W ones with new Iris Graphics 6100 will start shipping by the end of the first quarter.

Source Intel

Via GSMArena

Intel introduces 5th Gen 14nm ‘Broadwell’ Core Processors offering improved graphics and battery life

TAG Heuer going in for Partnerships and Acquisitions to build its own Smartwatch

In view of the growing popularity of smartwatches, traditional watchmakers are also getting into this field. TAG Heuer had recently announced plans to come out with its own smartwatch. The Swiss luxury watchmaker is going ahead with its plans for the smartwatch that will directly take on Apple Watch and other smartwatches.

Earlier, Jean-Claude Biver, interim chief executive of TAG Heuer had made some dismissive remarks about Apple Watch but he later admitted that he might have underestimated the attraction smartwatches had for people. He said that he had now changed his mind about smart gadgets. Biver also said that in the 4 months since the project was started, the company has begun negotiations for several partnerships and was thinking of making some acquisitions too.

Nothing has been finalized yet but according to rumors, TAG Heuer is working with Intel for providing the chipset to power its smartwatch. Rumors also say that the watch’s operating system would be Google’s Android. However, nothing is clear yet.

TAG Heuer wants to retain all the mechanical functions that form an integral part of its wristwatches and will add the necessary sensors and other components that are needed to make the watch ‘smart’ i.e. to monitor distance walked, steps taken, heart rate measurement and other parameters.

TAG Heuer wants to create a unique quality product that will be different from other smartwatches in the market and will refrain from making any announcement unless and until they have a sure shot product on their hands. The TAG Heuer smartwatch is expected to be launched somewhere in late 2015. The Apple Watch with which it wants to compete is launching in early 2015.

 

Via Redmond Pie

TAG Heuer going in for Partnerships and Acquisitions to build its own Smartwatch