Hasta La Gadget!

As much as MediaTek is known for powering budget smartphones, the company is keen to make a fast track into the big leagues. Or bigger, at any rate. General manager Xie Qingjiang explains to China Times that MediaTek should have a quad-core, 28-nanometer mobile processor in production between the fall and the very start of 2013 — not bad for a firm that just introduced a dual-core ARM Cortex-A9 design this summer. Smartphones built around the new part should arrive before the first quarter of 2013 is over. Details aren’t available for the processor in question, although it’s reasonable to say that MediaTek is more likely to serve a cost-conscious crowd than to compete in the lofty realms of the similarly 28nm Snapdragon S4 Pro. The move to quad-core could nonetheless be a welcome spike in performance for an audience that often has to settle for old technology.

Filed under: Cellphones, Mobile

MediaTek plans for quad-core chips in budget smartphones by early 2013 originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 26 Sep 2012 22:43:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Texas Instruments has announced it will scale back its mobile processor business, no longer targeting smartphones and tablets, but instead eyeing the embedded systems market. The surprise news follows further contractions in TI’s business, most recently seeing long-standing customer Motorola pick up Intel’s Medfield for the RAZR i, though TI says it will continue to support its existing clients, Reuters reports.

Nonetheless, that sounds like something of a stop-gap measure as TI exits the mobile chip industry. “We believe that opportunity is less attractive as we go forward” TI senior VP for embedded processing Greg Delagi said of phone and tablet chipsets; the company will no longer invest to the same extent in its customers roadmaps for upcoming models.

Exactly what sort of timescale TI has in mind for that scaled-back involvement is unclear, and the market has already reacted pessimistically. Delagi conceded that the embedded systems market would take more time to develop than the hotly-contested wireless market, but insisted that the transition would “generate a more stable, profitable long-term business” for TI as a result.

TI’s embedded chips are finding their way into increasingly complex in-car systems, driving internet-connected navigation and entertainment, as well as other industries where the gigahertz-chasing of mobile isn’t such an issue. The rapid evolution of wireless chipsets, as well as companies like Apple and Samsung opting to make their own ARM-based processors rather than externally source them, means competition has grown significantly in recent months.

Nonetheless, it’s an unusual decision to have made, and one TI’s partners are likely looking at with no small degree of suspicion. Barnes & Noble’s new NOOK HD and HD+ tablets, for instance, are based on Texas Instrument’s OMAP4xxx series of chipsets, and RIM has used TI chips for its BlackBerry PlayBook tablet. Many of TI’s more recent high-profile launches have shifted away from such applications, however, including a push into the so-called “internet of things.”

Texas Instruments sidelines phone and tablet chip business is written by Chris Davies & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Intel’s first LTE-capable Medfield smartphone chips are in the pipeline, along with multicore versions of the processor, with the first examples due before the end of 2012. Intel will be “shipping some LTE products later this year and ramping into 2013″ director of product marketing Sumeet Syal told TechCrunch, and in the meantime the company is working on fettling more Android apps to suit the x86 architecture.

That software hiccup could be a headache to Intel and its manufacturer partners, with devices like the freshly announced Motorola RAZR i unable to run certain software available through Google’s Play store. Google’s own Chrome browser, for instance, currently won’t work on the RAZR i, though Motorola has confirmed it should be functional by the time the midrange smartphone actually reaches the market.

“We’re not quoting any numbers” Syal says, “but the majority of all the apps we’ve tested work just fine.” The company’s team responsible for software has been working “constantly round the clock to make sure that all these apps work” and the number of compatible titles increases every day.

As for multicore, initially that will mean dualcore Medfield, with Intel not ready to talk about quadcore Atom processors for phones as yet. Intel, though, is in no great rush Syal insists, content with its hyper threading system that milks two threads out of a single core.

“You have to take a look at how many instructions per clock can the architecture handle — our belief is that others are throwing cores at the issue in terms  of getting more performance.  We make that determination based on our architecture so we felt very comfortable coming out with a single core dual-threaded for our first product, and as we’re able to get more and more performance in the right implementation of the architecture we believe putting in dual-core would be the right thing for our next generation product” Sumeet Syal, Intel

Timelines for the dualcore Medfield versions have not been revealed yet, and nor has Intel disclosed when the first Atom-based smartphones might arrive in the US.

Intel: LTE Medfield by end of 2012 plus dualcore incoming is written by Chris Davies & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

It’s always just been a matter of “when” and “how much,” but it looks as if PC gamers looking to score a powerplant upgrade can start planning on specific amounts. AMD’s impending FX Piledriver CPUs are now up for pre-order at ShopBLT, an outlet that has proven reliable in the past when it comes to nailing down processor pricing. For those in need of a refresher, these are built using the Vishera design, with the range including between four and eight CPU cores. We’re expecting ’em to best the Bulldozer family, and if all goes well, they could be available to the earliest of adopters in October. Presently, the FX-4300 ($131.62), FX-6300 ($175.77), FX-8320 ($242.05) and FX-8350 ($253.06) are listed, but CPU World seems to think launch day quotes will actually be a bit lower. Only one way to find out, right?

Filed under: Desktops

AMD Piledriver CPU pre-order pricing leaks out originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 21 Sep 2012 18:41:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Today the folks from Qualcomm have released a neat little video showing off just how impressive their Snapdragon processors that power most of today’s (and yesterdays) smartphones truly are. Qualcomm’s been a leader in the mobile processor space for a long time, and are powering some of the most popular phones like the Galaxy S III and HTC One X.

There’s a catch though. The video isn’t showing off their extremely impressive, efficient, and fast Snapdragon S4 that is running most smartphones today. No. It’s showing off their old and aging Snapdragon S2 processor from two years ago — still beating the competition in daily tasks. It is a smart little marketing video if I don’t say so myself.

One thing they are showing here is more than just their processing power, but the entire system on chip power and performance. A processor is more than just raw power and Qualcomm knows this. They show gaming using their powerful Adreno graphics, then fast and accurate GPS response thanks to the effort Qualcomm puts into the entire SoC.

So what do you guys think? Is this just a marketing ploy? We’ve reviewed tons of Qualcomm smartphones in the past, and the recent months and they always perform to the top of our expectations. The Xperia (used in the video) seems to run quite well on the Snapdragon S2 from 2010 — but we don’t necessarily know what they’re comparing it to. Qualcomm knows how to make some of the best mobile processors around as we so clearly see with the Galaxy S III here in the states. Oh and in case you didn’t see what they’re bringing in 2012 — you’ll want to check out the LG Optimus G and its quad-core S4 Pro.

[via Qualcomm YouTube]

Qualcomm touts their Snapdragon processor power – from 2 years ago is written by Cory Gunther & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.