Published in PC Hardware

MediaTek unleashes LTE octa-core on Indian market

by on14 October 2014



Cortex-A17 big.LITTLE, Rogue graphics

MediaTek's first 4G LTE application processor is finally available and it is making its way to mid-range smartphones in India and a few other regions. 

The MT6595 is a bit different than the company's first generation octa-core chips, which sported eight Cortex-A7 cores. The MT6595 is a big.LITTLE processor with four Cortex-A17 and four Cortex-A7 cores. It was showcased back in April.

The chip features PowerVR Series6 graphics with support for H.265 recording and playback. This means it can handle the latest 4K and UHD standards, along with H.264 and VP9. The GPU supports cameras of up to 20 megapixels and high resolution displays up to WQXGA (2560x1600).

In terms of connectivity, the MT6595 sports Category 4 FDD and TDD LTE and is capable of delivering downlink speeds of up to 150Mbits. The chip also supports HSPA+, TD-SDCMA and EDGE for legacy network support. In addition to LTE, the MT6595 supports 802.11ac wireless and Bluetooth LE. It also supports wireless charging through a MediaTek companion receiver.

The company said the new chip scores 47,233 on AnTuTu, but there are no third-party benchmarks yet.

The MT6595 is not designed for cheap phones. The company describes it as a "premium" design, but in reality it is a mid-range part. The Cortex-A17 is a relatively new 32-bit core supposed to fill the gap between A12/A9 cores and the big Cortex-A15. The first phones based on the MT6595 are expected to launch later this year, so we will know more about MediaTek's pricing soon.

MediaTek expects to ship a total of 30 million 4G LTE chipsets this year, or about 9 percent of its overall SoC shipments for 2014, estimated at 350 million units.

 

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