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posted by CoolHand on Wednesday May 13 2015, @08:17AM   Printer-friendly
from the more-more-more dept.

Forget octo-core big.LITTLE. What your next smartphone needs is a tri-cluster deca-core System-on-a-Chip (SoC) from MediaTek:

Right off the bat, MediaTek manages to raise eyebrows with what is the first 10 core System-on-a-Chip design. The 10 processor cores are arranged in a tri-cluster orientation, which is a new facet against a myriad of dual-cluster big.LITTLE heterogeneous CPU designs. The three clusters consist of a low power quad-core A53 cluster clocked at 1.4 GHz, a power/performance balanced quad-core A53 cluster at 2.0GHz, and an extreme performance dual-core A72 cluster clocked in at 2.5GHz. To achieve this tri-cluster design, MediaTek choose to employ a custom interconnect IP called the MediaTek Coherent System Interconnect (MCSI).

Contrary to what MediaTek presents as an "introduction of a Mid cluster", I like to see MediaTek's tri-cluster approach as an extension to the existing dual A53 cluster designs - where the added A72 cluster is truly optimized for only the highest frequencies. Indeed, we are told that the A72 cluster can reach up to 2.5GHz on a TSMC 20nm process. ARM aims similar clocks for the A72 but at only 14/16nm FinFET processes, so to see MediaTek go this high on 20nm is impressive, even if it's only a two-core cluster. It will be interesting to see how MediaTek chooses the lower frequency limits on each cluster, especially the A72 CPUs, or how these options will be presented to OEMs.

The [Helio] X20 samples in H2 2015 and devices with it are planned to be shipping in Q1 2016.

 
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  • (Score: 2) by takyon on Wednesday May 13 2015, @06:33PM

    by takyon (881) <reversethis-{gro ... s} {ta} {noykat}> on Wednesday May 13 2015, @06:33PM (#182528) Journal

    This would be great. If certain quantum/optical coprocessors can't be easily miniaturized to fit on a SoC, they can go in the workstation tower. Just don't lose your smartphone (portable surveillance workstation).

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