MediaTek unveils 6nm CPU designed just for Chromebooks

MediaTek just wrapped up its annual summit where the company reported on a wide range of subjects ranging from global marketing strategies to R&D and everything in between. This is our first time attending the summit and for obvious reasons, this year’s gathering was held virtually but we couldn’t have been more excited to attend. While there was a lot of exciting industry news surrounding MediaTek’s Dimensity chips, 5G, AI, and more, we came for the Chromebooks and the ARM chipmaker did not disappoint.

For months, we have been tracking the new baseboard Asurada that is being developed around the unannounced MediaTek MT8192 octa-core CPU but we haven’t had a lot of solid information about the processor until now. Moreover, MediaTek recently revealed that the company would be launching another processor that would be built on a 6nm process which would be a first for any Chrome OS device up unto this point. The MT8195 was little more than a name until today’s announcement where MediaTek laid out all the details for both CPUs that will be launching in 2021.

MediaTek has continued to push forward in the Chrome OS space with its latest octa-core processor that powers the Lenovo Chromebook Duet and other devices. The MT8183 has proven to be a capable CPU for budget-friendly Chromebooks but MediaTek is now looking to crack the premium market with its latest chipsets.

Chromebooks are seeing an unprecedented surge in popularity as more people work remotely and take online classes. MediaTek already powers some of the most popular Chromebooks on the market, and
will continue to improve and drive user experiences forward with our new chipsets. The MT8192 and MT8195 give brands more features to
design powerful Chromebooks with innovative form factors that can flip, fold or detach, are slim and lightweight, and have great battery life.

Jerry Yu, Corporate Senior Vice President at MediaTek

MediaTek MT8192

The first CPU detailed today is the MT8192 that we have been tracking for quite some time in the baseboard Asurada. This octa-core CPU is built using a 7nm process which happens to be the same die size as Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8c compute platform that powers a number of premium Windows laptops. The MT8192 features the Arm Cortex-A76 cores and four Arm Cortex-A55 with the familiar big.LITTLE ARM architecture to balance power and efficiency. It also comes equipped with an Arm Mali-G57 GPU that touts five cores and can handle 4K HDR content and push two Full HD displays. MediaTek states that the MT8192 is capable of 120Hz refresh rates on FullHD+ resolutions.

Chrome OS developers have been working with this CPU for months now and MediaTek says that we can expect to see devices on the market at some point in Q2 of 2021. We don’t have any benchmarks for this CPU at this point but it is plausible the MT8192 could boast enough power to find a place in EDU and consumer devices in every price range up to flagship-caliber devices.

MediaTek MT8195

As expected, MediaTek made its next-gen 6nm CPU official at today’s summit. This CPU features the same four A55 small cores but boosts the four larger cores to the newer Cortex-A78 for “intensive compute” tasks. MediaTek features the same Arm-Mali G57 GPU as the MT8192 and can support up to three connected displays simultaneously. MediaTek is touting this chip as its “flagship” Chromebook CPU and it stands to reason that this 6nm chip could give the company a strong foothold in the Chrome OS space.

The MT8195 is aimed squarely at the premium Chromebook segment and it is built on the same architecture that hasn’t even arrived on the most powerful smartphones available. The Cortex-A78 is reported to have a 30% power increase over the previous A77 that is found in the Snapdragon 865 that powers most of the current-gen flagship smartphones. That will make for a very powerful and power-efficient Chromebook. We’ll be bringing you more coverage of the summit and what to expect from MediaTek in the future. The MT8195 will launch in Chrome OS device some time towards the middle of 2021.