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Mediatek axes 28nm chips in favor of smaller, more efficient SoC’s

Nick PapanikolopoulosApril 19, 2017

According to information, Mediatek has already reduced most orders for 28nm chipsets (like the Helio P10/Helio P15 SoC’s) planning to completely end their production in the coming weeks.

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The current reduction amounts to 20.000 wafers (approximately 30% of their total wafer orders and are for the months of June, July, and August). Rumors say that the Taiwanese company reached this decision in order to focus on the production of more efficient 16nm chips that can see eye-to-eye with the mid-range Snapdragon chipsets from Qualcomm (SD626 and SD660).

However there are those who insist that Mediatek is being conservative, after its recent financial results (Q1 2017) that showed a 0,3% rise in revenue (NT$56.08 Billion) but it still is a huge 18.3% reduction when compared to the previous quarter.

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About the author

Nick Papanikolopoulos
With some little over 20 years of experience in the Mobile Technology sector Nick is the EIC of Gizchina.com. He has a Masters’ degree in Wireless & Wired Telecommunications, Electrical Engineering and Computer Informatics and a PhD in Mobility QoS Measuring Techniques.
If you'd like to know more you can always follow me on Twitter.

- - - princetom
      April 21, 2017
      He is tracking u?
      Have u finally gotten q phone?
      Pitched tent with Xiaomi mi max prime for now, if mi max 2 comes with better upgrades, especially snapdragon 660, i might upgrade. If not, will look elsewhere
      - Muhammad Yasir
        April 22, 2017
        heh , who knows … nowadays everyone says user info from chinese phones is sent back t china :p
        nah man , don’t have that sort of quid and Q phone won’t be coming to Pakistan any time soon.
        Mi Max 2 is looking good atm .. lets see how things pan out !
MattD
April 19, 2017
Welcome to 2014… -_-

Nolan
April 19, 2017
HTC went full retard by opting for that Helio P10 (doesn’t have GPS) for their One X10.
Anyway, MediaWreck is a done deal. QC / Samsung now rule the market in all segments (majorly QC), and thank goodness that is so.
Stupid Mediacrap.
- Zero
  April 19, 2017
  There is a worse thing and is called HTC 10 Desire Lifestyle…. It has the old crap Snapdragon 400 at 1.2 Ghz…
  - Assefa Hanson
    April 19, 2017
    That’s a snapdragon soc so Nolan won’t think it’s possible to be terrible
- Jh1
  April 19, 2017
  GPS works very well on my Helio p10 equipped my note. Just as well as on my SD 625 redmi 4 prime, and my girlfriend’s SD 820 Zuk z2.
- Rudra Bhatt
  April 20, 2017
  P10 doesn’t have GPS? ? What have you smoked? And another question, which modern SoC doesn’t have a GPS?
  - Plumplum
    April 20, 2017
    - Rudra Bhatt
      April 20, 2017
      Nothing new. And I think you misunderstood me. That is a proprietary line of SoCs only used in 2 devices at most which in turn runs on a proprietary OS so they really don’t count here.
      - Plumplum
        April 20, 2017
- Plumplum
  April 20, 2017
  Gps is OK (on soc) since mt6589! But sometime badly integrate by OEMs (cheap antennas shared with wifi)
  As Exynos are only available on Samsung, you thank goodness for monopoly, you’re crazy!
  You want to give monopoly to a Company that is often accused of abusing on costs of patents…That was condamned against chinese and corean authorities, that loose against blackberry, that is sued by Apple, on which there are inquiry of US FTC and European Union?
  That kicks out of the market nvidia, Intel, broadcom, Texas Instruments, St-Microelectronics.
  That provide the worst 64bits soc with S410 (compared to 6732, it’s funky!), that provide the worst octocore ever with S615 (compared to 6752!), that provide worst big.LITTLE soc with 810, unable to sustain A57
  Nevertheless I’m agree about HTC mistake with P10, they’d better use P20 instead or even X20 (no problem to sustain A72 on this one)
  - Rudra Bhatt
    April 20, 2017
    Correctly said! Qualcomm is a bitch which never fails to take advantage of it’s monopoly whenever and wherever possible.
  - Wolvie
    April 21, 2017
    Monopoly is bad indeed. But again mediatek never release a product that worth to fight that stupid patent troll qualcomm. Mediatek products were just below standard for mainstream *sigh*
    This is very sad because only mediatek product that selling at cheaper price in the market.
    - Plumplum
      April 21, 2017
      There’s many produits fromage Mediatek that are as good or even better than competitors from Qualcomm.
      For exemple 410 or 615 are crap compare to 6732 and 6752.
      As Qualcomm based his patents cost on the price of devices (not logiciel as Apple complains…I dislike them but they’re right), Mediatek can’t sell high-end soc.
      Si that they’re not release high-end each year.
      The last High end was mt6595.
      Cortex A17 were far better than Krait from 801/805.
      GPU in real game was very close (but not benchmarks).
      Despite this good soc, sales were very bad.
      X30 will be the next one.
      That’s the same with Intel Z3580.
      No one can release a competitive High-end soc due to patents trolling.
      Samsung/Huawei release some because they put their soc in their phones without competition.
      On X20, What stop Mediatek choosing 16nm, UFS2.0, bigger GPU instead of 20nm, eMMC, small Mali? Technicaly they’re able to…Answers is costs…
      Despite that, X20 is very close to S820, except in gaming.
      Most people think CPU on X20 throttle but no tests were published.
      I make my own…10 minutes full load on the 10 cores…Only 6% performance less. S810 or even S652 or S808 aren’t able to sustain as good. Most people think S810v2, 808 and 652 doesn’t throttle.

Zero
April 19, 2017
So.. They are about to show up the next generation of their chips.. So time to expect something like this:
– Low tier: ARM A35 Quad Core, Old Mali T-830 Dual Core. Only ones with 28 nm.
Maybe the speed of those quads can go up to 1.8 Ghz, the max speed for that node and uarch.
– Mid Tier: ARM A53 Octa Core with New Mali G51 Dual to Tri Core. Now at 16 nm.
It might be surprising that it comes with a A53 and A35 cores to get more energy efficiency.
– High Tier: Helio P30, Tri Cluster with ARM A73 at lower core speed (considering the node, it can go up to 2.0 Ghz) with Mali G71 (no core count info obtained). Everything at 16 nm.
Helio P35, a better version of Helio P30 (according to leaks the A73 cores runs up 2.2 Ghz) but the process is at 10 nm. So maybe it might have more GPU cores.
– Top Tier: Helio X30/35. All at 10 nm. Tri Cluster, Power VR GPU.
Assefa Hanson
April 19, 2017
Thank the looked omg
- Zero
  April 20, 2017
  Indeed.. MTK 6580 was killed LONG time ago.. I don’t know why they revived that piece of museum…
- Yeti hand
  April 22, 2017