MediaTek Labs and LinkIt Platform Launch Targeting IoT and Wearables

Companies such as Motorola, Apple, Nest, and Fitbit have been targeting the Internet of Things (IoT) and wearables market with devices for the past several years. However, if the smartphone revolution was any indication, we are merely at the tip of the iceberg for these devices. Even Apple acknowledged as much by naming the processor inside the Apple Watch the “S1”, clearly planning for future revisions.

Today, hoping to capitalize on this next wave of technology proliferation, MediaTek is formally launching their Labs program for IoT and wearables. This is one of many announcements we will see over the next year as companies look to enter this market.

MediaTek Labs’ goal is to be a central hub for developers to collaborate on everything from side-projects to big business device production. With Labs, MediaTek provides software and hardware development kits (SDKs and HDKs), technical documentation, example code, and discussion forums. MediaTek was a late entry into the smart phone market in 2009/2010 but has since exploded in popularity largely due to very complete reference designs and aggressive pricing. MediaTek aims to reproduce this success, only earlier, for the IoT and wearables space.

When discussing hardware, it’s important to keep in mind there are actual several sub markets. I’ve reproduced a slide and table from MediaTek that does a decent job laying out the differences.

One thing I do not like about this table is it insinuates these markets are mutually exclusive. While I agree there are indeed hardware and software differences between sub markets, with low enough sleep power and smart enough software, a single device could contain both a high performance applications processor (AP) as well as a low power microcontroller (MCU). In fact, that’s exactly what Intel’s Edison platform and many smart phones do, such as the Moto X. Nevertheless, hybrid devices are certainly more complicated and there is a lot of success to be had focusing on a single task.

For example, the popular Pebble smart watch and Nest thermostat each contain a simple MCU with no high performance AP.  This is exactly what MediaTek is targeting with their first platform release on labs: LinkIt. LinkIt actually refers to MediaTek’s new MCU operating system, which is launching alongside a new SoC named Aster or MT2502. Additionally, a hardware development kit from partner Seed Studio is available through Labs, as well as a software development kit to aid in firmware development and to help port existing Arduino code.

The core of this kit is of course the new Aster MT2502 SoC. MediaTek feels it is uniquely positioned with an SoC that contains an MCU, Power Management Unit (PMU), Memory, Bluetooth 4.0, and a GSM and GPRS Dual SIM modem (850/900/1800/1900MHz). The total size of the SoC is 5.4×6.2mm. If GPS/GLONASS/BEIDOU or WiFi b/g/n are desired, MediaTek provides compatible external ICs for each.

Developers eager to get their hands dirty can do so as of today for $79. The LinkIt One development board is available and shipping from Seed Studio. This board combines the Aster MT2502A SoC, MT5931 for WiFi, MT3332 for GPS, audio codec, SD card, many I/O interfaces similar to Arduino, and Arduino shield compatibility.

It will be a while before we see non-prototype designs featuring LinkIt and Aster hit the market, but if MediaTek has its way that will only be the start. MediaTek plans on releasing more SDKs, HDKs, and chips through their Labs website and partners over the next few years. As of this writing MediaTek has already posted a beta SDK and emulator for Android targeting the higher performance IoT and wearable devices. While I am not personally sure just what additional smart devices I need in my life right now, I actually think that gets me more excited about the future than otherwise.

Samsung’s Exynos 5433 is an A57/A53 ARM SoC

There has been a lot of confusion going on over the last few weeks on what exactly Samsung’s Exynos 5433 is. Joshua and I were pretty much convinced that it was a standard big.LITTLE A15/A7 chip configuration due to naming consistencies and evidence in firmware. Even though the Note 4 was already announced with region-specific models employing this chip, Samsung S.LSI has yet to divulge any kind of official information on the matter or even publicly announce the chip.

With the release of new source code, we can now confirm that the Exynos 5433 is indeed the first Cortex A57/A53 SoC to market. We see a 4x Cortex A57, 4x Cortex A53 big.LITTLE CPU configuration employed in the part, here’s a little overview of what we currently know: 

The big question is why Samsung choose to name this chip Exynos 5433 and not market it as a 64-bit chip in a new product lineup? The answer could be simply that we won’t ever see the 5433 running in AArch64 mode. The chip’s firmware and drivers are running on a “CAL” / Chip-Abstraction-Layer on the lowest level of the driver stacks. In fact, beyond the CPU cores (and GPU), the Exynos 5433 looks very similar to the Exynos 5430 which employs A15/A7 cores. 

While we won’t be seeing the Exynos 5433 running 64-bit code any time soon, it still takes advantage of the architectural improvements of ARM’s Cortex A57 and A53 cores and their ARMv8 instruction set (running in AArch32 mode). Power consumption should also be improved due to the new A50’s power management and new retention features. The silicon, similarly to the 5430, is manufactured on Samsung’s new 20nm process.

Atlas (A57) and Apollo (A53) cores in the power management drivers

Also employed for the first time is ARM’s new Mali T760 GPU running at 700MHz. We already published an architectural dive into the T760 detailing what’s new. I wasn’t able to determine the number of cores on this GPU due to ARM’s transparent and scalable driver architecture in regards to shader cores, this is something we’ll have to wait for in the eventual official announcement or in a hands-on investigation.

While the Exynos 5433 seems nothing more than a “brain-transplant” in terms of SoC design, the newer Exynos 7 chip is a genuinely new part. Over the last 3 weeks Samsung has been busy submitting patches to the Linux kernel mailing lists adding support for their new SoC lineup. The Exynos 7420 seems to be on track for Samsung’s next flagship lineup, this time in full 64-bit AArch64 mode with Android L. The details of the chip are still sparse, but we’ll be seeing the same A57/A53 CPU combination together with an Mali T760, powered by an LPDDR4-capable memory controller.

The Exynos 5433 is definitely a surprise that many didn’t expect. Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 810 isn’t officially due until Q1 2015, and we don’t know yet when we’ll be seeing it in consumer devices. Here Samsung has quite a lead as the Note 4 variants with the 5433 are shipping in the coming weeks. While I’m still a bit perplexed at Samsung’s silence and lack of announcements, the fact that many regions are supplied a Snapdragon S805 in the Note 4 may have to do something with it, as they wouldn’t want to cause buyer’s remorse. 

Samsung Announces Exynos 5430: First 20nm Samsung SoC

While we mentioned this in our Galaxy Alpha launch article, Samsung is finally announcing the launch of their new Exynos 5430 SoC.

The main critical upgrade that the new chips revolve around is the manufacturing process, as Samsung delivers its…