Spreadtrum Announces the SC9861G-IA, a 14nm Intel Atom 8 Core SoC with Cat 7 LTE Capabilities

Intel did not have the best luck when it came to the mobile chip industry and at times it was thought the company was backing out entirely. This ended up not being the case, but it is fair to say that Intel couldn't make an impact in the market the way they had originally wanted to. This was largely due to the issues they were having with their modems, but the company has been making a lot of progress that makes some people feel they could get back into the game very quickly.

Last month, it was reported that Spreadtrum would be basing one of their mobile SoC's on Intel's Atom architecture. We didn't have very many details to go on at the time, but there were a few things to take note of. The report from PCWorld claimed the chip would be called the SC9861G-IA, that it would be paired with the PowerVR GT7200 GPU, it would support devices with 1440p displays and that Spreadtrum would use it to target the mid-range device segment.

However, now that some more official details have been announced, it looks like this chip will be used for high-end devices. The Spreatrum SC9861G-IA SoC uses 14nm fabrication process and features eight Intel Airmont cores that are clocked at 2.0GHz. Imagination Technology's PowerVR GT7200 GPU, an ISP that supports up to two 13 MP camera sensors, dedicated sensor hub, and a display controller can handle resolutions up to 2560×1600. Instead of using one of Intel's modems, though, it will actually be using Spreadtrum's own 5-mode LTE Cat 7 modem, which is quite disappointing for a chipset aiming above the mid-range segment.

This makes the Spreadtrum SC9861G-IA the most powerful, and likely most energy-efficient, x86-based SoC available for smartphones — though that's not saying much, since the x86 family on Android has been stagnant since the release of the ZenFone 2. It's actually the first x86-based SoC by Spreadtrum, and the CEO of Intel is on the record as saying that it won't be the last either. Spreadtrum has a relatively small marketshare when it comes to smartphone chips, so we'll have to wait and see if the devices that use the Spreadtrum SC9861G-IA SoC make any meaningful impact for these two companies.

Source: AnandTech

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