MediaTek unveils world’s first true octa-core mobile platform

On Wednesday, MediaTek launched its “octa-core” chip, the MT6592, claiming it to be the first of its kind that can use all eight processors simultaneously. Designed to be both powerful and energy efficient, the chip has a clock speed of 2 GHz and is built with ARM’s Cortex-A7 processor cores. The first products to use the chip will arrive at the end of this year or early next quarter.

MediaTek isn’t widely known in the U.S., but it’s become the largest vendor for smartphone chips in China, according to research firm Gartner. MediaTek said it wanted to break into the market for high-end products, including tablets, with its new eight-core processor.

“For many Chinese vendors it’s very difficult to compete with Samsung and Apple at that price level,” he said. “So they price their phones lower, giving them an additional sales point to attract customers.” Putting an eight-core chip on a smartphone or tablet gives Chinese vendors another sales point to use in their product marketing, Sheng added.

read more at PCWorld