During these past 2 weeks, I posted 122 videos from my trip in China. Thanks for watching! I have now returned back in Europe. Here are the numbers of videos that I posted from each conference:
Hong Kong Trade Development Council
– Shenzhen Electronics Fair (April 10-11th): 21 videos
– China Sourcing Fair (April 12, 15th): 32 videos
– HKTDC Electronics Fair (April 13, 14, 16th): 36 videos
– Canton Fair (April 18th): 11 videos
– Videos filmed at the Shenzhen Electronics Market, at Shenzhen company headquarters and at Shenzhen Factories: 22 videos
Here are the trends from these conferences looking at the number of videos that I filmed in each trending chip provider category:
1. Boxchip AllWinner A10 and A13 ARM Cortex-A8 with Mali-400 GPU. 24 new videos filmed. Before this trip, I only had 3 Boxchip related videos on my site, Boxchip has now exploded in popularity among Chinese device makers. It offers a beautifully smooth Ice Cream Sandwich experience for a really low cost. This cheap ARM Cortex-A8 SoC with Mali-400 GPU acceleration for Android 4 ICS might be key to make this solution now very popular: $63 no-name from Shenzhen Market, $47 capacitive Boxchip A13, Aipad Wacom, $120 9.7″ iPad-like, $79 1024×600 7″ IPS from Daza Electronics, FirstView, $85 10.1″ Laptops from Sunlike, $80 1024×600 7″ and $57 WVGA from Bmorn, Boxchip in Game players by Yinlips, $59 A13 from T Link, 1024×600 compact 7″ from Avaid, $49 resistive, Ochang, Yones Toptech, GDB, $60 Apical, $64 Eken, Rocat, Sanxo, 10″ Laptop by Kinstone, 7″ Laptop by Kinstone, 4upad, Yamay.
2. Rockchip RK3066 Dual-core ARM Cortex-A9 with Quad-core Mali-400 GPU. My Interview with Rockchip about RK3066. The initial benchmarks I’ve heard about on RK3066 place its performance very high. There are already a range of prototypes with RK3066 inside being shown by a whole range of Rockchip partners. Here are my first RK3066 videos: $128 10.1″ 1280×800 by Alldocube, Pipo 10.1″ and 9.7″. Expect lots new RK3066 devices to be released quickly. The SoC and price difference between this and ARM Cortex-A8 solutions may make this one very popular even for cheap/affordable implementations out of China.
3. MediaTek MT6575 ARM Cortex-A9 with SGX531 GPU. MediaTek looks to dominate the low-cost Android smartphone market out of China. Last year, it was the ARM9 based MT6516 (as in my FG8 phone that I used as my main phone for 9 months until I upgraded to a Galaxy Nexus this February) that only supported 2G Dual-sim, which they then upgraded to the ARM11 based MT6573 with 3G dual-sim about 6 months ago, but now the MT6575 is a single-core ARM Cortex-A9 with full Android 4 Ice Cream Sandwich support. The MT6575 is likely going to have a huge influence on the new higher performance yet still cheap Android phones to come in the next weeks and months out of China. ICS on sub-$150 5″ WVGA MT6575 Dolphin A80 phone (2), ICS on 5.2″ Hyundai H950 MT6575, $142 Galaxy Nexus clone with MT6575, Zopo ZP100 with MT6575 selling now for $174 street price in Shenzhen (I bought one, I’m waiting for the ICS release within days/weeks), Amoi dual-battery MT6575, sub-$140 5.2″ MT6575 by Daza Electronics, Quality Industrial MT6575, $75 3.5″ MT6575 by Orient and a bunch of companies showing MT6573 solutions: Yooe/Runtong MT6573 7″ Tablet, Long Ten Jie, Sharing, Begin, Dynamax, Vinus, Pusite, Zivi, J8000 and X20i, Zhongyi, Goal, LGTD, Migo, Zhenai waterproof.
4. Rockchip RK2906 ARM Cortex-A8 without HDMI for cheap. As with the Boxchip A13 without HDMI, Rockchip now also releases a new lower cost ARM Cortex-A8 skew without HDMI called the RK2906. The thinking might be that many people in China and worldwide do not have a HDMI or do not need the HDMI output, so they may as well design the SoC without HDMI to save another $2-$5 on the bill of material for the device. I’ve found it in the $49 Rk2906 7″ capacitive tablet by Sawink. Rockchip also launched the RK2908 (also featured in my Rockchip interview video) for cheaper ARM Cortex-A8 Set-top-boxes only.
Processors that I have not yet seen or noticed a lot of on this trip but who may have imminent devices that may quickly gain significant market share out of Shenzhen based device makers:
AmLogic announced their AML8726-MX Dual-Core ARM Cortex-A9 design. I think I’ve been hearing about a Dual-core ARM Cortex-A9 coming from Telechips. But those can not yet be sighted at the fairs as far as I know.
A bit can be seen featuring the ST-Ericsson U8500 and low-cost skew U8410, I expect several more devices to be shown soon out of China featuring these. Also offering potentially great value Dual-Core ARM Cortex-A9 for smartphones and connected tablets. I think ST-Ericsson wants to position their Dual-core Cortex-A9 to compete with Single-core Cortex-A9 solutions.
Broadcom can be found just a bit. Sprodcom was showing some.
I hear rumoring of impending Freescale i.MX6 devices, up to quad-core but I guess possibly also great value lower priced Single and Dual-core devices to come.
Renesas announced their MP5232 1.5Ghz Dual-core Cortex-A9 with integrated LTE modem back at Mobile World Congress. But I have not yet found devices featuring that. I wonder if they plan to regain Chinese makers interest with a faster low-cost successor to last year’s EV2 533Mhz Dual-core ARM Cortex-A9.
Qualcomm seems to have upgraded the MSM7227 with skews that use the new faster ARM Cortex-A5 instead of the previous year’s ARM11. I am not sure if I have noticed that on this trip. I get a bit confused as they still call it MSM7227 or MSM7225, they add a T or an A at the end, I forget which is the new Cortex-A5 design.
Telechips also has a new Cortex-A5 processor which I first saw in March at CeBIT in the Valueplus Tizzbird HDMI stick, but I am also not sure if I have seen any other devices on this trip using that yet.
