MediaTek Is Revolutionising The Mobile Segment, Just Like AMD Did With The PC

In this day and age, technology and gadgets are evolving at supersonic speed. Yesterday, we were introduced to the first six cores driven mobile phone in India. Karbonn showcased Titanium Hexa that has a Meditek (MT6591) CPU with six cores on it. This is a new in-between chip that is just a step behind octa-cores and not too expensive. Octa-core CPU is the new trend in mobile phones and is being picked up by many Indian mobile manufacturers.

Mediatek has built six cores for people who want more power from their mobiles but do not want to spend too much. This is a new market created by them in the mobile segment, which might explode in the coming months. AMD adopted a similar strategy 5-6 years ago with their six cores PC CPU. However, the six cores CPU by AMD was actually an eight core one, in which two cores were dysfunctional. AMD pushed these as well to the end customers for a lesser price. This helped them to generate revenue from the otherwise throwaway product.

The strategy worked for AMD and they were able to capture the market by giving the users something more powerful than the quad-core, which is just a step behind the octa-core PC processor.

The same step from MediaTek seems to be logical and can bring faster and less expensive smartphones in the market. These would be able to play media files and games faster, and would be able to handle multiple applications at once, hopefully without breaking a sweat.

But will this kill the quad-cores?
Not really. The quad-core mobile CPU will still continue to grow. The price of these will certainly come down and as this happens the sub 10K smartphones will also have a quad-core CPU, which right now is ruled by single and dual-cores.

So who will buy hexa-cores CPU?
The hexa-core CPU’have only been seen in national phones. If a multinational picks up the technology, it can usher a new wave of converts. The mid-segment of smart phones is where the hexa-core mobile CPU will fit. People who want to multi-task, play movies and games on their mobiles phones and do not want to spend too much money on a cell will be the target audience.

This has opened up more avenues for handset manufacturers. The Rs 15,000 phone bracket will suddenly blow up with more and more hexa-core smartphones. It will be interesting to see if any of the international manufacturers such as Samsung or Sony, selects the Mediatek chipset for some of their mobile devices. However, the chances right now are bleak as these multi-national majors are looking at octa-core devices as the next evolutionary step.