Whether or not you think eight-core smartphone chips are a marketing gimmick, Taiwan’s MediaTek could help make them a norm in the Chinese market, putting pressure on Qualcomm’s own business in the country.
On Wednesday, MediaTek launched its “octa-core” chip, the MT6592, claiming it to be the first of its kind that can use all eight processors simultaneously. Designed to be both powerful and energy efficient, the chip has a clock speed of 2 GHz and is built with ARM’s Cortex-A7 processor cores. The first products to use the chip will arrive at the end of this year or early next quarter.
MediaTek isn’t widely known in the U.S., but it’s become the largest vendor for smartphone chips in China, according to research firm Gartner. The company has risen to the top largely by selling its chipsets to local makers of low-end phones. But on Wednesday MediaTek said it wanted to break into the market for high-end products, including tablets, with its new eight-core processor.
What MediaTek means by high-end, however, doesn’t equate with handsets like Apple’s iPhone 5s or Samsung Electronics’ Galaxy S4. Instead, MediaTek wants to help Chinese vendors come out with mid-range products, said Roger Sheng, an analyst with Gartner. These smartphones would be priced at 2,000 yuan ($326) or higher, a notch down from the iPhone, which starts at 5288 yuan in the country.
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