Several major smartphone manufacturers may have canceled plans to release new devices using the future MediaTek Helio X20 processor, due to concerns regarding the chip overheating. If that sounds familiar, it’s eerily similar to the situation faced by Qualcomm and the ill-fated Snapdragon 810. The rumor comes from the Weibo social network, and the companies named are HTC, Lenovo, and Xiaomi — but there’s no official word on the situation yet. MediaTek’s Helio X20 was shaping up to be a mobile processing powerhouse. The deca-core chip has already been announced, and can run at a speedy 2.5GHz while consuming 30-percent less power than the Helio X10, seen in phones including the HTC One X9 and the Xiaomi Redmi Note 2. The X20 cleverly uses a “three gear” tri-cluster set up, where only selected cores are active depending on the tasks running. This improves on the “two gear” system seen on octa-core chips. Related: MediaTek turns to IoT at CES with host of new hardware The apparent cancellation is due to manufacturers inability to optimize the chip to overcome excessive generation of heat. HTC will certainly be wary of any heat-related issues, having stuffed the revised Snapdragon 810 inside the One M9, only to find it still didn’t cure the problem entirely. HTC uses MediaTek chips in phones often destined for markets other than the U.S., where it competes with Xiaomi and Lenovo, among others. Rumors surrounding the HTC Perfume/M20 have mentioned there may be two versions, one with a Snapdragon chip, and the other a MediaTek chip. Any problems faced by the MediaTek Helio X20 are rumor for now, and we’re still expecting to see the first smartphones running the processor announced very soon, just perhaps not by the big names mentioned above. Zopo Mobile, a Chinese brand, has been teasing the arrival of its Speed 8 phone for a while, for example, and it may be announced at MWC at the end of February. Also watch: HTC Vive Pre: Why it’s the Best VR Experience Ever Please enable Javascript to watch this video



More...