MediaTek and Samsung: the possibility of cooperation and interesting consequences
The Taiwanese DigiTimes website, which specializes in retelling gossip from the world of Asian electronics manufacturers, has published some interesting information (for example, which brand products will it collect who, who will supply screens for such smartphones, and who, when and for what? interesting and, in most cases, later confirmed by real facts).
So, DigiTimes with reference to the Chinese newspaper Commercial Times reported that in 2014 the Taiwanese company MediaTek intends to become one of the suppliers of hardware platforms for smartphones - that's your time - Samsung. I emphasize that this is still just a rumor, and yet there is an opinion that if such information was published on the indicated resource, the corresponding negotiations are likely to be conducted. From this you can draw some interesting conclusions.
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The first. It, strangely enough, concerns Nokia and Microsoft. The latter company is now at the stage of absorption of the first and, according to numerous rumors on the Internet, Redmond plans to cancel the release of a number of Asha phones ready for production and to reduce this line significantly in the future. Meanwhile, many Nokia Asha phones use processors (both central and graphic) from Broadcom. It also supplies chips for some budget Samsung smartphones. At the same time, it should be understood that partnership with Nokia for Broadcom is significantly more important than with Samsung: the latter does not build key and megapopular products on Broadcom hardware, while Asha phones, despite Nokia’s position in recent years, are sold worldwide quite cheerfully.
So, since the “processor” division of Broadcom may soon lose one of its most important customers (well, or not to lose, and, let's say, no longer receive such large-scale orders from it), then this American company - what the hell is not joking - may and completely withdraw from the market of ARM-chips for phones.
A similar example in history has already been - and Nokia can also be called “extreme” in that situation. Let me remind you that since time immemorial, Symbian smartphones sold in gigantic circulations have been based on Texas Instruments processors. However, in 2011, Nokia made a "feint ears" and reoriented to Windows Phone, which, as you know, is optimized exclusively for Qualcomm "stones". As a result, Texas Instruments gave up on ARM processors for smartphones with a hand (although it had interesting developments, for example, this company could have released the first serial chip on the Cortex-A15) and left the mobile market, focusing on components for embedded systems.
The second conclusion. Obviously, MediaTek processors (DigiTimes reports that 4- and 8-core chips will appear in Samsung devices) will also be noticeably cheaper than solutions made by American Broadcom, so ... Now in emerging markets local brands rule using the component base in their products MediaTek. And in the ultrabudgetary segment, Samsung and other brands of the first echelon act as overtakers, since they cannot install the same low prices on their smartphones - largely due to the expensive iron used in them. Meanwhile, in 2014, Samsung and local brands may be in a similar position: yes, Korean products will still be somewhat more expensive (due to better screens, cameras, soft chips, etc.), but the gap will surely be reduced. And then the local brands may very well have a hard time. Especially since A-brands are already experimenting with MediaTek processors, smaller ones - in particular, LG and Sony (some details here and here ). So far they are not doing so well, but these are only the first steps - and in the future, the process of reduction in price will probably go faster.
Below is a comparative table of Highscreen Alpha Rage (the cheapest - 4,990 rubles - a 4-core smartphone in Russia, based just on the MediaTek processor), Samsung Galaxy Y Duos (Samsung smartphone, which you can buy for the same money) and Samsung Galaxy Win Duos (the closest analogue of the Alpha Rage in the line of Samsung on the characteristics, which is already 11 990 rubles).
The gap between the product of the local brand and the Samsung model with similar characteristics, as you can see, is still very serious. And if it is reduced, say, by a factor of two - including through the use of MediaTek solutions? Add to this the fact that Samsung will certainly become a privileged partner for MediaTek, which will ensure, for example, the appearance of the most recent versions of the Android operating system in Korean smartphones noticeably earlier than that of models of local brands.
The third is not even a conclusion, but rather an explanation. Why not Samsung itself to start making cheap processors, since the Korean manufacturer has experience in designing such components? The answer is simple: the experience is there, but small. Just compare the Galaxy S4 versions on the Qualcomm processor and on the Exynos 5 Octa processor. The latter initially had glitches with the camera (sudden reboots), and even now, after a few firmware, there are also some rough spots - in particular, Instagram is not working correctly (according to some sources, Samsung, and not the developers of this service, is to blame for this) there are sudden warm-ups and so forth. The Qualcomm version doesn’t have all of this, which proves that someone ate the dog on processors, and who, pardon for sarcasm, while eating dogs in the literal sense, forgetting to do fine-tune their hardware. In short, the experience is not enough, resources are also sleggy limited (in the field of processor building), and therefore Samsung does not consider it necessary to deal with budget chips - to deal with the flagship chips. And budget ones can be ordered on the side ...
In general, curious times are coming. The very fact that Asian suppliers have successfully penetrated into the big leagues is already obvious (we have already mentioned above MediaTek, LG and Sony, and HP tablets with Chinese RockChip processors should be mentioned here), and the matter remains small - to get to the top. At the top, as we know, while Qualcomm sits. And, there is an opinion, the throne under the latter is already unsteady ...
So, DigiTimes with reference to the Chinese newspaper Commercial Times reported that in 2014 the Taiwanese company MediaTek intends to become one of the suppliers of hardware platforms for smartphones - that's your time - Samsung. I emphasize that this is still just a rumor, and yet there is an opinion that if such information was published on the indicated resource, the corresponding negotiations are likely to be conducted. From this you can draw some interesting conclusions.
')
The first. It, strangely enough, concerns Nokia and Microsoft. The latter company is now at the stage of absorption of the first and, according to numerous rumors on the Internet, Redmond plans to cancel the release of a number of Asha phones ready for production and to reduce this line significantly in the future. Meanwhile, many Nokia Asha phones use processors (both central and graphic) from Broadcom. It also supplies chips for some budget Samsung smartphones. At the same time, it should be understood that partnership with Nokia for Broadcom is significantly more important than with Samsung: the latter does not build key and megapopular products on Broadcom hardware, while Asha phones, despite Nokia’s position in recent years, are sold worldwide quite cheerfully.
So, since the “processor” division of Broadcom may soon lose one of its most important customers (well, or not to lose, and, let's say, no longer receive such large-scale orders from it), then this American company - what the hell is not joking - may and completely withdraw from the market of ARM-chips for phones.
A similar example in history has already been - and Nokia can also be called “extreme” in that situation. Let me remind you that since time immemorial, Symbian smartphones sold in gigantic circulations have been based on Texas Instruments processors. However, in 2011, Nokia made a "feint ears" and reoriented to Windows Phone, which, as you know, is optimized exclusively for Qualcomm "stones". As a result, Texas Instruments gave up on ARM processors for smartphones with a hand (although it had interesting developments, for example, this company could have released the first serial chip on the Cortex-A15) and left the mobile market, focusing on components for embedded systems.
The second conclusion. Obviously, MediaTek processors (DigiTimes reports that 4- and 8-core chips will appear in Samsung devices) will also be noticeably cheaper than solutions made by American Broadcom, so ... Now in emerging markets local brands rule using the component base in their products MediaTek. And in the ultrabudgetary segment, Samsung and other brands of the first echelon act as overtakers, since they cannot install the same low prices on their smartphones - largely due to the expensive iron used in them. Meanwhile, in 2014, Samsung and local brands may be in a similar position: yes, Korean products will still be somewhat more expensive (due to better screens, cameras, soft chips, etc.), but the gap will surely be reduced. And then the local brands may very well have a hard time. Especially since A-brands are already experimenting with MediaTek processors, smaller ones - in particular, LG and Sony (some details here and here ). So far they are not doing so well, but these are only the first steps - and in the future, the process of reduction in price will probably go faster.
Below is a comparative table of Highscreen Alpha Rage (the cheapest - 4,990 rubles - a 4-core smartphone in Russia, based just on the MediaTek processor), Samsung Galaxy Y Duos (Samsung smartphone, which you can buy for the same money) and Samsung Galaxy Win Duos (the closest analogue of the Alpha Rage in the line of Samsung on the characteristics, which is already 11 990 rubles).
The gap between the product of the local brand and the Samsung model with similar characteristics, as you can see, is still very serious. And if it is reduced, say, by a factor of two - including through the use of MediaTek solutions? Add to this the fact that Samsung will certainly become a privileged partner for MediaTek, which will ensure, for example, the appearance of the most recent versions of the Android operating system in Korean smartphones noticeably earlier than that of models of local brands.
The third is not even a conclusion, but rather an explanation. Why not Samsung itself to start making cheap processors, since the Korean manufacturer has experience in designing such components? The answer is simple: the experience is there, but small. Just compare the Galaxy S4 versions on the Qualcomm processor and on the Exynos 5 Octa processor. The latter initially had glitches with the camera (sudden reboots), and even now, after a few firmware, there are also some rough spots - in particular, Instagram is not working correctly (according to some sources, Samsung, and not the developers of this service, is to blame for this) there are sudden warm-ups and so forth. The Qualcomm version doesn’t have all of this, which proves that someone ate the dog on processors, and who, pardon for sarcasm, while eating dogs in the literal sense, forgetting to do fine-tune their hardware. In short, the experience is not enough, resources are also sleggy limited (in the field of processor building), and therefore Samsung does not consider it necessary to deal with budget chips - to deal with the flagship chips. And budget ones can be ordered on the side ...
In general, curious times are coming. The very fact that Asian suppliers have successfully penetrated into the big leagues is already obvious (we have already mentioned above MediaTek, LG and Sony, and HP tablets with Chinese RockChip processors should be mentioned here), and the matter remains small - to get to the top. At the top, as we know, while Qualcomm sits. And, there is an opinion, the throne under the latter is already unsteady ...
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/196626/
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