14 DAY TRIAL // The rivalry between MediaTek and Qualcomm hasn't been that fierce this year, as the latter was the clear winner in 2016. The high-tier mobile chipset market was dominated by Qualcomm and its Snapdragon 820 processor, even though MediaTek had prepared a much cheaper alternative, the X20.
For next year, MediaTek has prepared handset makers a few nice surprises, which, hopefully, will be more successful than its previous high-end chipset.
According to a new report coming from China, MediaTek has decided to adopt TSMC's 10nm FinFET manufacturing process for its next high-end chipset, the Helio P35. The processor hasn't been announced yet, but it's just a matter of weeks until MediaTek goes official with the P35.
The same report claims the first smartphones powered by the Helio P35 processor will be commercially available in Q3 2017, so that should be the release date for the MediaTek chipset, too.
Similar hardware specs as the MediaTek X30
As far as the specs go, MediaTek's Helio P35 chipset will feature support for UFS 2.1, just like the Snapdragon 835. Also, the chipset will come with Cat.10 baseband support and no less than 10 cores inside.
The Helio P35 is a deca-core processor, but to cut costs, MediaTek has decided to include a Mali-G71 graphics processing unit. It's also worth mentioning that the chipset supports up to 10GB of RAM, which is nothing short of amazing.
A similar technology to Qualcomm's Quick Charge will be implemented inside the Helio P35 as well. It will be called Pump Express 3.0 and it should offer a charge rate of 0 to 70% in 20 minutes.
It remains to be seen if the Helio P35 deca-core processor will perform well enough for handset makers to choose it over other Qualcomm chipsets.
On a side note, the Helio P35 won't be the only chipset MediaTek plans to launch in 2017, so we believe it will be an interesting year for the smartphone industry.