5G Sooner than expected

This is way sooner than I expected for 5G -- 5G protocol will change the world as far as streaming portable video --- it will be fast enough and cheap enough that there will be nothing in the way.

Highly beneficial to Microvision.

DigiTimes

MediaTek is looking to debut the first generation of its 5G chip solutions as early as 2018. The Taiwan-based IC design house has expanded an R&D team engaged in the development of 5G solutions to more than 100 people, according to sources familiar with the matter.

In addition, MediaTek is working closely with Europe- and Japan-based mobile operators such as NTT DoCoMo to jointly develop and conduct trials of their 5G wireless technologies, the sources said.

Earlier in 2016, MediaTek and NTT DoCoMo have jointly announced their partnership for 5G technology development and trials.

Rival Spreadtrum Communications is also looking to launch experimental 5G chips in 2018, according to industry sources. Spreadtrum is expected to partner with major China-based mobile operators to develop and conduct trials of 5G technology as China aims to improve its self-sufficiency in the semiconductor space.

The general consensus is that 5G networks will be commercialized in 2020.

Watch MediaTek

From Bidness

I've been watching for MediaTek for some time because I have heard that its chips are optimized for video streaming.

This article provides some confirmation of that - some of us think that phones or smaller devices optimized for video streaming are going to be a HUGE market.

 I've clipped the key lines from the article, but check it out at the link.

Qualcomm, Inc.: How MediaTek Won Chip Orders For Next Amazon Fire TV

We at Bidness Etc believe MediaTek might stand to make a statement by luring Amazon. The truth is MediaTek won’t register a massive win against Qualcomm, especially since the video-streaming device market is a niche market and is considerably smaller than the phone market when it comes to volume. However, MediaTek is making rapid strides in a market largely dominated by fewer players, and winning orders for Amazon products will represent a major statement of intent from the Taiwan-based chip maker.

First 10 core chip.

I've been informed a number of times that multi-core chips make video playback (and a lot of other things) much better on a phone. The more cores, the smoother the playback, the faster the loading and better battery life.

This chip ALSO has a very interesting feature that would make streaming video much more efficient (Extremely high speeds.)

So, this is one of those things to watch -- something that will improve the ecosystem for PicoP technology.



From PhoneArena

Pushing the boundaries are we, MediaTek? The up-and-coming chipmaker just made the long-rumored mobile Helio X20 chipset official, in all of its ten-core glory. Yep, you read that right, the speculations were all true, and the X20 boasts ten Cortex cores in a big.LITTLE configuration. 

Well, the way MediaTek achieved this is a bit iffy, as we have two powerful Cortex-A72 units, clocked at 2.5 GHz, then four lowly Cortex-A53 pieces, running at 2 GHz maximums, then a quad pack of Cortex-A53s again, which has been clocked the lowest, at mere 1.4 GHz. MediaTek calls this a tri-cluster approach, but, surprisingly, all this innovation is aimed at the upper midrange phones of the future, as suggested by the inclusion of only two powerful Cortex-A72s.

The system-on-a-chip (SoC) kit also includes MediaTek's integrated LTE Cat. 6 modem, which allows for up to 300Mbps download speeds, if your carrier can provide those, of course, and all main wireless radios, too. The graphics prowess has been relegated to the yet-announced ARM Mali-T800 GPU, which should be just a step below the scorching Mali-T880. 

The tiny fly in the ointment is that Helio X20 supports "only" DDR3 RAM memory, but MediaTek argues that, since the SoC maxes out at Quad HD display support, DDR3 will be plenty. All that jazz is stuffed into the footprint of the current X10, as the X20 is done with the 20nm production process, and yet it offers 40% stronger performance than the X10, at the same time consuming 40% less power. The deca-core Helio X20 will be sampling to customers in H2 2015, which likely means we will see the first handsets or tablets with it for the holidays at the earliest, and most likely in Q1 of next year. Check out the full X20 specs in the slideshow below.

This is a good article, a little old, but I found it the most comprehensive of those I looked at. This is a very small piece of it. There are great benefits to having multiple cores.

From an article about the benefits of multi-core chips: (At engadget)

"Besides offering a better battery, faster loading, multithreading and improved gaming, we saw a lot of new functionality come to our phones over the last year, and multi-core tech is largely to thank. 1080p video playback and capture, glasses-free 3D technology, improved speech recognition and language processing, improved multimedia, higher-resolution displays, and many more features are much easier to accomplish using dual-core capabilities -- and as we start piling on more cores, it'll get even better."