Up-and-coming Chinese fabless semiconductor company Mediatek has announced that it will launch its first quad-core SoC, the MT6588, in the fourth quarter of 2012 and will launch the world’s first 8-core ARM-based SoC, the MT6599, in the first quarter of next year.

The SoC will be aimed at the mainstream Chinese OEM market and will support LTE, TD-SCDMA and WCDMA. The MT6588 is a quad-core model with Cortex-A7 cores clocked at 1GHz and manufactured using a 28nm process, which means that the octo-core SoC may be based on the A7 as well.

Other claimed features include the use of Imagination Technologies’ PowerVR SGX544 GPU (the same as the A5X on the Apple iPad 3 and a notch above the Apple iPhone 5 and the A6), support for 13-megapixel camera sensors and a price of up to $20 (£12), almost half what Qualcomm is apparently charging for its high-end S4 SoC like the Krait-based MSM8960A.

Despite its massive presence in the Chinese market, Mediatek is still relatively unknown in Europe and the US when it comes to consumer products like tablets or smartphones, where players like Allwinner or Rockchip tend to be better positioned.

Source: MTKSJ