Key customers were not interested
MediaTek is planning a Helio X30 in 10nm later this year but news from Taiwan indicates that some key customers didn't order the new flagship 10 core chip.
One of the main reasons might be the increase competition in the Chinese market and companies cannot afford to have two designs of the same phone with Qualcomm or a MediaTek chip in. Rumor is that Xiaomi, MediaTek's big customer might be coming up with its own Pinecone SoC and this will put some additional pressure on MediaTek's high-end. There might be two Pinecones SoCs targeted at the mainstream and high end market.
LeEco, another big MediaTek customer is going through tough financial times, and was not interested in making big orders. Hope which is the number one smartphone vendor in China is usually a big customer. Another big one that usualy goes with MediaTek is current number 3 in China Vivo. The number two, Huawei has its own Kirin SoC while the number Four, the fruity Apple has its own SOC.
Oppo is MediaTek's big hope as is Vivo. Oppo and Vivo are expected to sell 120 million and 100 million smartphones respectively, in 2017.
The upcoming Snapdragon 835 SoC is also going to give Mediatek a worry. It is shaping up to become one of the best, if not the best phone SoC of all times. MediaTek usually has the pricing advantage over most of its competitors so it might compete against it on price.
This is a TSMC manufactured chip based on the the long relationship that the company has with the biggest chip foundry which is across the street from MedaiTek's headquarter in Hsinchu, Taiwan. The end result might be the massive cancellation of 10nm wafer orders at TSMC, as there wont be anyone who would want to buy. The timing could not be worse, as this was the first time MediaTek wanted to take the leap of faith and bet the farm with the latest and greatest 10nm . Now it looks like it will have to cancel a lot of the 10nm orders. Still a few phones with Helio X30 deca core will hit the market.
No comments:
Post a Comment