MediaTek has announced a new mobile chipset, the MT6575, that promises to bring Android 4.0 to entry-level smartphones. The hardware is based on a 1GHz Cortex-A9 processor, stepping up from the 650MHz chip of the previous-generation components that were utilized in Lenovo's A60 handset.
Imagination Technologies hinted strongly at the roadmap for Apple and other mobile device makers late Tuesday with word that it had handed out the first licenses for PowerVR 6 series graphics. It confirmed that ST-Ericsson's future Nova chips, as well as later TI OMAP processors and unnamed hardware from MediaTek, would use the new technology. Three others were also onboard but were being kept secret, alluding to Apple as one of the clients.
Rambus late Wednesday sued six semiconductor firms in a patent dispute that could jeopardize electronics. The multiple suits filed in a Northern District of California court accuse Broadcom, Freescale, LSI, MediaTek, NVIDIA and STMicro of copying Rambus technology for DDR memory, including GDDR memory for graphics, as well as common connection standards such as DisplayPort, PCI Express, SAS and SATA. It claimed ownership of some of the techniques after having bought the patents from Velio Communications in 2003, EETimes noted.
Chinese chipset supplier MediaTek said on Monday that it has joined the Google-ran Open Handset Alliance. The company makes some of the world's least expensive handsets, though sales have mainly been relegated to mainland China. With its latest move and a recent tie-up with Qualcomm, this could mean some Android-powered handsets at entry-level prices could come to North America soon.
China Mobile is due to release the Lenovo-made Ophone this May, beating Apple's iPhone to the market, which itself is rumored to go on sale in China in June through carrier Unicom, says a Monday DigiTimes report. The two touchscreen smartphones share similarities, including a similar look to the touch-enabled user interface on a large touchscreen, though the Ophone is already known to be based on China Mobile's customized version of Android known as the Open Mobile System (OMS).
