Published in Mobiles

MediaTek introduces Helio P20

by on23 February 2016


16nm PDDR4X and eight A53 at 2.3GHz


Sony showcased its zero bezel Xperia XA with Helio P10 at the Mobile World Congress today along with its next generation mainstream processor the Helio P20.

The Helio P20 is MediaTek’s first 16nm processor and will be manufactured by TSMC. Moving form 28nm High performance processor to 16nm allows the company to get to 2.3 GHz which is 25 percent faster than the Helio P10. It should have a 25 percent better battery life too. MediaTek claims that this is the first phone to support low power double data rate random access memory – LPDDR4X. This sounds like a great feature as memory is a huge bottleneck on mobile devices.

The company still sticks to its successful Cortex A53 cores that run up to 2.3GHz and use Core Pilot technology to do the optimal core and frequency switching. This has been one of the company’s largest assets. It has proven that eight small A53 cores can give you a great performance maintaining good battery life.

Much faster T880 MP2 GPU

The new Mali T880 MP2 GPU will run at 900 MHz. This is a big upgrade from the P10 that is using the Mali 860 MP2 at 700 MHz. This is the company’s highest end Mali GPU. MediaTek recognizes the importance of GPU and a need for faster gaming and multimedia.

Jeffrey Ju, Executive Vice President and Co-Chief Operating Officer at MediaTek.

"MediaTek designed the MediaTek Helio P20 to meet today's consumer demand for sleek, powerful yet highly power efficient mobile devices. Consumers place increasing importance on the battery life and multimedia capabilities of their smartphones. MediaTek has risen to this challenge with a leading solution."

MediaTek Helio P20 comes with LTE Cat 6 and 2x20 carrier aggregation at 300/50Mbps data speeds. This is the highest that most companies have been offering. The good news for the US readers is that we got a confirmation from the company that there will be some Helio devices officially launching in the US. The new Cat 6 modems in P10, P20, X20 will support all bands and frequencies.

The SoC supports global Dual-SIM Dual Standby for seamless connectivity.For regions where GSM is no longer available, the SoC will have simultaneous standby on WCDMA network. MediaTek Helio P20 supports LTE multimedia broadcast and multicast service. This allows mobile devices to receive HD video content over LTE.

LPDDR4X power drops from 1.1 to 0.6V 

MediaTek Helio P20 integrates LPDDR4X, providing 70 percent more bandwidth than the LPDDR3 and 50 percent power savings by lowering supply voltage to 0.6V. This means a quicker, smoother user experience for camera, video and new gaming apps. This was what the company’s CTO Kevin Jou confirmed to Fudzilla during our last meeting.

Image Signal Processor (ISP) learns new tricks

The P20 also has the exclusive MediaTek Imagiq Image Signal Processor (ISP), which uses the same design from MediaTek Helio X20, to improve camera ease-of-use and picture and video quality. MediaTek Imagiq encompasses the latest ISP technologies to satisfy the most demanding smartphone photographers with features that include:

• Advanced 12bit Dual ISP supports Bayer and Mono sensors – elevates picture quality by effectively reducing noise and capturing three times more light than conventional Bayer + Bayer sensors.
• Dual phase-detection autofocus – achieves real-time auto focus that is four times faster than traditional autofocus systems
• 3A HW engine upgrades for more natural, responsive and detailed photographs
• Powerful multi-scale temporal de-noising technologies – renders videos and photography more accurately, with less noise, even in low light

The MediaTek Helio P20 is expected to be in commercial devices in the second half of 2016. Samsung Electronics, Chiwook Kim, Vice President, Memory Product Planning & Application Engineering Team said:

"Samsung's new 6GB LPDDR4X, based on 20nm 12Gb mobile DRAM technology, combined with MediaTek Helio P20 line-ups, will provide outstanding performance and power efficiency for video and gaming apps that require advanced multimedia functionality. Through our collaboration with MediaTek, we expect to accelerate the adoption of leading-edge mobile memory solutions like 6GB LPDDR4X, while offering greater energy efficiency and slimmer designs to enhance the user experience."

SK Hynix, NH Park, Vice President and the head of DRAM Marketing Group said:

"As the smartphone standard aims for the pinnacle point, the high-end segment has started to take on high-performance LPDDR4 memory from the first half of 2016. LPDDR4 shows off better performance and less power consumption in comparison to that of the LPDDR3. These advantages lead to longer-term usage and allow faster data transfers from mobile devices. Applying these new trends, SK Hynix will provide enough performance and power efficiency called upon by the market demands in the high-end segment through the introduction of LPDDR4 this year with MediaTek's collaboration for P20."
Last modified on 23 February 2016
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