Mediatek working close with TSMC on new 7nm SoC architecture

[dark zero]

Mediatek working close with TSMC on new 7nm SoC architecture

According to reports from Taiwan that came to our attention today, it seems that TSMC is working closely with Mediatek on an next-gen SoC with 12 cores that will be based on the cutting-edge 7nm architecture! This means that this new system processor will be faster, more powerful and more power efficient than today’s 10nm chips.

So far Mediatek has successfully manufactured several 10 core chipsets, like the Helio X20 and X25 with significant increase in their performance, but this doesn’t seem to be enough for them to compete with Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8xxx SoC’s today. Mediatek already knows this, so the Chinese based company has decided to choose a specific approach, to accomplish its goals by balancing performance with pricing and energy efficiency.

Source: http://www.gizchina.com/2017/03/09/mediatek-working-close-tsmc-new-7nm-soc-architecture/

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Thanks for the guys from Gizchina for this information.

And seems that Mediatek is going forward and going 12 core now. Is beyond AMD now in terms of physical cores.

However is pending to see the configuration and the GPU used on there.

 

[NTMBK]

Jesus, enough with the cores. 2 big + 2 little should be enough for any phone, just look at Apple.

 

[JoeRambo]

Jesus, enough with the cores. 2 big + 2 little should be enough for any phone, just look at Apple.

When you are a mile (Mediatek is probably a light year) behind Apple in ST performance, only thing you can do is increase core counts. It also happens to align with what marketing department wants. And they will get way with it cause Apple chips do not run Android and most people running for example shiny new S7 are not aware of the substantial (understatement of the week) gap.

P.S. my personal phone is S7, so no inter camp fighting please, Apple chips are stuff of envy for anyone who had chance to run custom code on both platforms.

 

[AMDisTheBEST]

We can never have enough cores. I am still waiting for intel's 65 core xeon phone XD
http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer...amd-and-mediatek-with-65-core-xeon-smartphone

 

[lopri]

Jesus, enough with the cores. 2 big + 2 little should be enough for any phone, just look at Apple.

A little bit of apples v. oranges there.

 

[dark zero]

A little bit of apples v. oranges there.

By the Way, seems that Zephyr is a bigger core than expecting...

Better to Apple to use SMT in order to fully use their cores.

 

[french toast]

By the Way, seems that Zephyr is a bigger core than expecting...

Better to Apple to use SMT in order to fully use their cores.

This.
I've been expecting apple to move to SMT for ages, maybe ST turbo also.
2+2 with SMT is the perfect setup for smartphone imo.

 

[NTMBK]

By the Way, seems that Zephyr is a bigger core than expecting...

Better to Apple to use SMT in order to fully use their cores.

Apple didn't add Zephyr to improve throughput, they added it for efficiency when the big core would be under utilised.

 

[dark zero]

Apple didn't add Zephyr to improve throughput, they added it for efficiency when the big core would be under utilised.

Isn't even more efficient to use SMT instead of little cores?

 

[Lodix]

Isn't even more efficient to use SMT instead of little cores?

First of all SMT is not really having 2 threats in a core. It sometimes even gives negative improvements. This is a mobile SOC where power consumption and thermals are very constrained. There are a lot of processes in the background that doesn't need big performance but are always running so a core designed for lower power/performance will do the job much efficiently ( the little cores of the A10 consume 1/5 of their big cores ). The A10 only has cluster migration implemented so it only uses one cluster at a time depending of the load and never the 4 cores are online. There are a lot of people complaining about the number of cores on the android chips but they have been proven to be useful for efficiency and performance.

 

[NTMBK]

Isn't even more efficient to use SMT instead of little cores?

You're thinking efficiency when the CPU is working flat out, and you want to maximise throughput. Not the same thing at all! This is for low intensity tasks, where the big core would be under used. Instead of using loads of energy to fire up the big core to only get 5% utilisation, you turn on the little core and use way less energy.

 

[dark zero]

You're thinking efficiency when the CPU is working flat out, and you want to maximise throughput. Not the same thing at all! This is for low intensity tasks, where the big core would be under used. Instead of using loads of energy to fire up the big core to only get 5% utilisation, you turn on the little core and use way less energy.

Just look at Intel Core M... it has a way to use lower consuptiom with just 2 cores, SMT and L3 Cache.

BTW, something that ARM needs is that they should start to use L3 cache to improve ST performance...

Mediatek should be start to think to use that.