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Rockchip Electronics announced their next generation 28nm SoCs for tablets based on GLOBALFOUNDRIES’ 28nm High-K Metal Gate (HKMG) manufacturing process.

Chinese chip maker Rockchip announced their next-generation mobile SoCs destined to end up inside budget tablets. Based on GLOBALFOUNDRIES’ 28nm High-K Metal Gate (HKMG) manufacturing process, the new Rockchip RK3188 and RK3168 SoCs promise power-optimized performance for next-generation of low-cost Android powered tablets.

Rockchip RK3188 Quad-Core SoC

The quad-core RK3188 SoC is powered by four ARM Cortex A9 CPUs clocked at 1.6 GHz. As far as CPU performance is concerned, the RK3188 has it covered. Even the graphics department is backed by an adequately powerful Mali400 MP4 (quad-core) GPU, the same one found inside the Galaxy S3, but clocked much higher at 600 MHz. Apart from that, the SoC is capable of playing 1080p video @ 60fps, while video capture is limited to 1080p @ 30 fps.

Rockchip RK3168 Dual-Core SoC

The RK3168 is an inferior, dual-core SoC destined for the cheapest tablets (read, Chinese tabs). While the CPU front is axed in half, four cores down to two, the GPU takes a much heavier toll. A quad-core Mali400 is replaced by a much weaker PowerVR SGX540 GPU, though such low-cost tablets with low-resolution displays won’t be needing the excess power in the first place.

Despite the nature of the SoC, it still supports 1080p video playback, as well as a maximum display support of up to 1080p (1920 x 1080).

Expect to see low-cost tablets from China powered by the new Rockchip SoCs in the coming months.