According to Digitimes the outfit is about to enter volume production of its 10-core SoC series for smartphones in the third quarter of 2015.

Dubbed Helios X20, the SoC will be targeted at Chinese based smartphone makers who want to upgrade their flagship devices.

Marketing will begin in the middle of the second quarter. When it gets into the shops it will be the world's first 10-core chip.

The Helios X20 uses a 2+4+4 design, delivering 40 per cent more performance than eight-core chips. While this will give a lot of power to a smartphone, it is not clear what it will do for battery life or the size of the beast.

Still it is nice to see that someone has found a new way of getting more life out of the 20 nm process and do something good with it.