Apr 15
Quantenna Communications has announced that it is working on what it claims to be the world’s first 10G WiFi chipset. This chipset will eventually find its way into the next … Continue reading
Dec 09
Qualcomm has announced a new chipset designed to help lead emerging mobile markets into the 64-bit era. Its new Snapdragon 410 chipset is integrated with a 4G LTE “World Mode” for “high-volume” (budget or entry-level) smartphones. The company’s main target market here is China. The Snapdragon 410 is designed for maximum OEM flexibility, meaning Qualcomm […]
Nov 20
MediaTek launches world’s first true octa-core mobile chip, first devices due end of year
Posted in: Today's Chili
Qualcomm’s nightmare has finally come true. Earlier today, MediaTek officially introduced the world’s first true octa-core mobile processor, MT6592, and the first devices to feature it are expected to arrive as soon as end of year. This 28nm chip packs eight low-power Cortex-A7 cores, and courtesy of the Heterogeneous Multi-Processing use model on top of ARM’s big.LITTLE architecture, all eight cores can operate simultaneously — at up to between 1.7GHz and 2GHz, depending on the bin.
MediaTek pointed that Chrome can already make use of all eight cores, and likewise with some map apps, video players plus multi-window function. According to the company’s figures, the MT6592 manages to beat what appears to be the quad-core Snapdragon 800 in benchmarks, power consumption (as low as 40 percent) and temperature. You can see the full detail in this article’s gallery. %Gallery-slideshow122456%
Filed under: Cellphones, Misc, Mobile
Sep 27
The teardown of the iPhone 5s has officially gotten microscopic. With the team at chipworks making it their mission to get down and dirty with the heartiest Apple chip on the market today, the iPhone 5s has joined the ranks of the devices that our current teardown culture has seen fit to take apart down […]
Aug 29
When MediaTek announced that it would be producing true eight-core mobile processors later this year, we knew it was only a matter of time before its main rival Qualcomm chimed in. As illustrated by a set of guitar amplifiers, the San Diego gang explains that while they rebuild their CPU cores for each generation (the latest architectures being Krait 300 and Krait 400), they claim that “Our Competitor” — which is labeled with the same font and colors as MediaTek’s logo — simply “chooses to duplicate the same old cores” based on ARM’s slower Cortex-A7 architecture. That said, it’s worth a reminder that Qualcomm’s cheaper Snapdragon 400 range also uses Cortex-A7.
Later on in the video, Qualcomm uses a Guitar Hero-like visualization to compare the performance difference, as well as show how octa-core is overrated for most apps. Apparently only 17 out of the top 20 Android apps in China use two cores at most, hence the bare fretboard for the octa-core side. The Snapdragon side, meanwhile, combs through a denser bunch of apps at a higher speed. Of course, there’s bound to be some bias here, so only time will tell how close to reality this argument is. Until then, enjoy the cheeky clip after the break.
Jul 02
Samsung may already have its 8-core Exynos 5 Octa offering, but the cunning “big.LITTLE” implementation means only up to four cores work together at any time — either the Cortex-A15 quartet or its lesser Cortex-A7 counterpart. In other words, we’d rather rename the chipset range to something like “Exynos 5 Quad Dual.” But according to recent intel coming from Taipei and Shenzhen, it looks like Taiwan’s MediaTek is well on its way to ship a true 8-core mobile chipset in Q4 this year.
Source: Sina Weibo (login required), UDN (1), (2)
Jun 17
Now that Haswell’s available in consumer-grade laptops, it’s time to look at what’s next on Intel’s to-do list. A leaked slide-deck is claiming that Haswell-E, the enthusiast version of the chip, is coming in the second half of 2014. The documents also promise that Intel will axe the 4-core base model in favor of 6-and-8-core editions of the CPU, which can pack up to 20MB of L3 cache. At the same time, the company is likely to release the Wellsburg motherboard chipset, which can support DDR4 RAM with a clock speed of up to 2,133MHz. If it’s all to be believed, then we have one word of advice to the overclocking community — best start stocking up on liquid nitrogen.
Source: VR-Zone
Jun 07
Yesterday Texas Instruments introduced a couple of new chipsets (fuel gauge an charger ICs) designed to improve the charging speed and life expectancy of single-cell Li-ion batteries. The technology, called MaxLife, is expected to provide an improvement of up to 30 percent in battery service life and faster charging times. Cell impedance is carefully monitored by the fuel gauge chip while the charger IC uses a model of battery degradation to charge the cell in the most effective way. Both chips are connected via an I2C bus to form an autonomous battery management system which, according to the company, is safer and more thermally efficient than existing solutions. The two chipsets (2.5A and 4.5A) are now available along with a development kit, so it’s only a matter of time until this technology lands into handsets and other devices that use single-cell Li-ion batteries. Check out the details after the break.
Filed under: Cellphones, Misc, Mobile
Apr 24
Qualcomm Q2 2013 earnings: revenue up to $6.12 billion, profit reaches $2.07 billion
Posted in: Today's Chili 
Qualcomm is having an easy time riding the growing wave of mobile devices. Case in point: its very healthy second quarter earnings. Revenue at the San Diego outfit climbed 24 percent year-over-year to $6.12 billion, while the chip designer’s net profit grew a similarly brisk 17 percent, to $2.07 billion. The figures were respectively up a modest 2 percent and down 6 percent versus last quarter, but that’s to be expected given the usual post-holiday lull. Qualcomm still shipped a more than ample 173 million units of its MSM chips, and it expects to return $431 million to shareholders for their trust. The company also has a rosy-cheeked vision of the future — it expects its third quarter revenues and profits to climb by at least 25 percent and 14 percent each, even with shipments down to as little as 163 million. When Qualcomm is at the heart of the HTC One, many Galaxy S 4 models and the Optimus G Pro, there’s a good chance the company is being realistic about its prospects.
Filed under: Cellphones, Tablets, Wireless, Mobile
Source: Qualcomm
Apr 10
It’s been rumored for a while now that Apple’s been planning on moving away from Samsung for chipset manufacturing, and will instead make a deal with the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC). However, reports are rolling in that the move has finally happened, and the next chip that is on Apple’s list will not involve Samsung.
According to the Korea Times, Apple will launch its A7 processor during “the first half of next year,” and the new chips will boast 20-nanometer processing technology. The discontinuation of Samsung’s services by Apple is said to most likely put the Korean-based company into a tough situation financially, and they may have to shut down several manufacturing lines because of the ended production.
Of course, this doesn’t come as much of a surprise. It’s been rumored and speculated for awhile now, almost to the point where we would be surprised if Apple didn’t shutter business with Samsung. The two companies have been involved in a series of legal cat fights with one another over the past several years, so cutting all ties seems like the best solution to get away from each other.
Furthermore, the Korea Times reports that this year’s iPhone upgrades won’t be running a next-generation A7 processor, but rather just an improved version of the current A6X chip, with most likely a slightly faster processor and updated components, which means the next iPhone that we see may not be a huge change over the iPhone 5.
[via Korea Times]
Apple reportedly boots Samsung from chip development is written by Craig Lloyd & originally posted on SlashGear.
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