MediaTek's new Helio X20 SoC packs 10 cores, three CPU clusters

MediaTek announced the launch of Helio X20 SoC for smartphone and tablet. The company claims that it is the world's first processor with 10 processing cores (Deca-core) and tri-cluster CPU design.

For the very first time we are seeing such an architecture on a chipset.The Helio X20 consists of three processor cluster, each designed to handle different types of work loads. It consists of one cluster of two ARM Cortex-A72 cores (clocked at 2.4GHz for exterme performance) and two cluster of four ARM Cortex-A53 cores (one clocked at 2GHZ for medium loads and the other 1.4GHz for light activities). 

The company says that dividing the cores into three clusters provides more efficient allocation of tasks for smoother performance and extended battery life. "Innovative three cluster architecture sets new performance and power efficiency benchmarks with up to a 30% reduction in power consumption for the next generation of mobile device"

The Helio X20 is most likely to comes with Mali T800 series GPU and for memory chip it comes with two LPDDR3 Memory running at 933MHz. It features support for smartphone and tablet displays with 120Hz refresh rate. It also supports 32-megapixel single camera with 24fps and 25-megapixel camera with 30fps. 

The processor packs 3D depth engine built into the hardware and includes new de-noise and demosaic hardware for improved image quality, color accuracy and sharpness under extreme conditions. There is also support for 10-bit color depth and both HEVC, VP9 HW decoding.

It also features an integrated lower power ARM Cortex-M4 processor to support always-on applications such as MP3 playback and voice activation. The sensor hub operates on a lower power domain for better battery efficiency.

The Helio X20 processor will begin sampling Q3, this year and can be expected to be available in consumer products by end of this year.

Source : MediaTek