MediaTek Says MT6595-Based 4G LTE Octa-Core Phones Will Reach India This Year

At an event in Delhi on Monday, the Taiwanese chip-maker MediaTek announced the commercialisation of its latest SoC - the 4G LTE-enabled octa-core MT6595. Devices using this SoC should arrive in the Indian market by the end of the year.

The new MediaTek MT6595 SoC is a premium product, and wouldn't be found in many entry-level devices, according to Dr. Finbarr Moynihan, General Manager - Corporate Sales International, MediaTek. According to Moynihan, MediaTek will offer a wide range of LTE products in the entry and mid-level, but the MT6595 also shows that the company, which is still largely associated with budget handsets, plans to have a role in all levels of the market.

Moynihan also noted that the shipments for the company have been bigger than expected, with 350 million chips shipped in 2014; he added that of this, 30 million will be LTE chips, double the 15 million that the company was earlier expecting.

This SoC had first been announced by MediaTek in February and reports suggest that the successor to the Xiaomi Redmi Note will be powered by the MT6595.

Based on the ARM big.LITTLE technology and powered by Cortex-A17 architecture, MediaTek MT6595 comes with a 600MHz PowerVR GPU and support for dual-channel DDR3 RAM. This is the 32-bit version of the chip, but Moynihan also said that a 64-bit version of the chip, named the MT6795, will be launched in the near future.

Moynihan also noted that the new SoC is around 60 percent more efficient, so it should lead to an improvement in battery life on phones. However, it also supports a huge number of multimedia features, including an ultra-HD display, 120 fps screen refresh and hardware support for features such as post-processing of videos, to support image stabilisation and face "beautification." The phone can record 4K video and supports a 20-megapixel camera, while Moynihan also noted that the AnTuTu benchmark for the reference device was a whopping 47,233.

However, all this is simply the potential of the chip. Device manufacturers will get to decide which features to use and not to use, and this will in turn have an impact on pricing. Even so, customers can expect phone prices to be on the higher side.

"[The] volume will be good but it will not be a huge seller," said Moynihan. "Over time the features will trickle all the way down to the entry level as well. It will take some time, and we believe that the next year will be very exciting for LTE handsets, but you can anticipate plenty on 3G too."

Moynihan also reiterated that MediaTek is investing heavily in research and development, pointing out a recent investment in San Diego and also mentioning the fact that MediaTek will be spending $200 million (approximately Rs. 1,225 crores) on research and development in India over the next few years, where it has facilities in Noida and recently, Bangalore.