MediaTek unveils Helio X20 development board

NEW DELHI: The Taiwan-based mobile chipmaker MediaTek said that it has  launched its Helio X20 Development Board, based on MediaTek’s high-end Helio X20 mobile processor, making it the first development board in the industry to use Tri-Cluster, deca-core and ARM® Cortex®-A72 technology.

"The Helio X20 Development Board, compatible with Linaro’s 96Boards specification, broadens MediaTek’s Internet of Things (IoT) reach and is designed to meet the needs of the Android developer community. Developers can use the advanced board to build solutions for existing and emerging markets including virtual reality, advanced driver assisted systems (ADAS), mobile point-of-sale, smart signage, vending machines and more," the company said in statement.

“With our new development board we give developers amazing computing performance and unmatched power efficiency of the MediaTek Helio X20 that our customers use for commercial products. This goes to MediaTek’s core of finding new ways to bring technology to the masses,” said Jeffrey Ju, Executive Vice President and co-Chief Operating Officer.

“We look forward to innovative MediaTek-powered products and applications the Android community will produce, reflecting our spirit of Everyday Genius," added Ju.

The developer community increasingly chooses to build products based on Android, due to the operating system’s mass adoption. One challenge in the development board market, however, is the lack of software standardization among boards from different manufacturers. To solve this, MediaTek joined Linaro, an open-source organization, to support the 96Boards platform, which is an open hardware standard.

The MediaTek Helio X20 Development Board is designed with the Linaro 96Boards specification, so it is compatible with other 96Boards products for other solutions. That means developers can easily incorporate their work into the Helio X20 Development Board and enjoy all the flexibility and creativity the board has to offer.

“The Helio X20 Development Board sets a new performance benchmark among 96Boards products with its deca-core, Tri-Cluster combination of the ARM Cortex-A53 and A72 along with the ARM Mali-T880 MP4 graphics chip,” said David Rusling, Linaro CTO.

“The Helio X20 Development board will enhance the range of 96Boards development platforms, enabling commercial and hobbyist developers working on the next generation of products and software. We look forward to developers taking advantage of the new performance levels that MediaTek is providing," added Rusling.

MediaTek’s Helio X20 Development Board leverages the Tri-Cluster deca-core structure to more efficiently handle different types of workloads. It can delegate simple tasks to one cluster of cores, while directing more complex and more power-hungry tasks to the other clusters for smoother performance and extended battery life. It is an ideal platform for Android developers working on innovations for today’s existing and emerging markets.