PARIS – Gunning for a growing market in mid- and entry-level smartphones, MediaTek Inc. (Hsinchu, Taiwan) is rolling out today a new dual-core mobile phone platform, dubbed MT6577, offering advanced multimedia features similar to those available on high-end smartphones such as Apple’s iPhones 4S.
The new platform, which combines a dual 1GHz Cortex-A9 application processor from ARM with MediaTek’s proven 3G/HSPA modem, features a PowerVR Series5 SGX graphics processing unit from Imagination Technologies, and runs the latest Android 4.0 “Ice Cream Sandwich” operating system.
For MediaTek, the MT6577’s mission is clear: Piling together the multimedia features available on today’s $600 smartphone to mid- to entry-level $150 - $200 smartphones , and thus changing global smartphone market dynamics in 2012 and 2013.
The MT6577, fabricated by using a 0.40 mm process technology at Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., is already in active design-in activities with lead customers, according to Finbarr Moynihan, director of business development, North America and Western Europe. “First models using the MT6577 will emerge in the third quarter of this year.”
Will Strauss, president of Forward Concepts, said, “Clearly, with dual Cortex-A9s and HSPA modem on the same die, its biggest competitor is Qualcomm.”
MediaTek already commands the number one position on the global mobile phone chip market, “in terms of volume [but not in revenue],” said Moynihan.
Forecasting a whopping 45 percent compound annual growth rate for mid- to entry-level smart phones over the next five years, Moynihan described the trend as the “democratization of smartphones.”
Global smarpthone sales by wholesale price tier (millions of units)