MediaTek's Helio P70 brings advanced AI and premium upgrades to mid-range devices

MediaTek today announced the launch of the Helio P70 system-on-chip (SoC), with an enhanced AI engine combined with CPU and GPU upgrades for more powerful AI processing.

Helio P70 also comes with upgraded imaging and camera support, a gaming performance boost and advanced connectivity features. The Helio P70 packs all these upgrades into an ultra power-efficient chipset to meet the most demanding user needs.

The introduction of the Helio P70 follows the global launch of the Helio P60 earlier this year, and builds on its hallmark features to power the "New Premium" market of full-featured smartphones at affordable price points.

Built with TSMC's 12nm FinFET technology, the Helio P70 features a multi-core APU operating at up to 525 MHz for fast and efficient edge-AI processing. To maximize the performance of demanding AI applications, the chipset packs four Arm Cortex-A73 2.1 GHz processors and four Arm Cortex-A53 2.0 GHz processors in an octa-core big. LITTLE configuration.

For an additional power boost, the chipset has an improved Arm Mali-G72 MP3 GPU operating at up to 900 MHz, which provides a 13 percent performance improvement compared to the Helio P60.

"With an enhanced AI engine that works seamlessly across the CPU and GPU, Helio P70 delivers much faster performance for AI applications and is still highly power efficient," said TL Lee, General Manager of MediaTek's Wireless Communication business unit. "The introduction of Helio P70 continues MediaTek's commitment to deliver high-end smartphone features and advanced technology for the mass market."

Enhanced AI Engine

Helio P70's enhanced AI engine delivers a 10 to 30 percent AI processing boost compared to the Helio P60. That means Helio P70 can support more complex AI applications such as real-time human pose recognition and AI based video encoding.

MediaTek's AI video encoder enhances video call quality even when connection bandwidth is limited. It can be used for video calls including Skype calls, Facebook video calls and YouTube live video streaming.

Helio P70 is built on MediaTek's NeuroPilot platform, the company's comprehensive hardware and software ecosystem to support edge AI. NeuroPilot supports common AI frameworks, including TensorFlow, TF Lite, Caffe, Caffe2 and custom third party offerings.

Fluid Gaming Experience

Helio P70 GPU enhancements also deliver a better overall gaming experience. It's optimized to reduce frame-rate jitter and improve latency for touch controls and display visuals for a smooth, fluid gaming experience.

High Performance Camera Features

Helio P70 supports a variety of AI-infused photo and video experiences including real-time beautification, scene detection and artificial reality (AR) capabilities. The chipset features improved deep-learning facial detection with up to 90 percent accuracy. With support for a super-sized 32MP single camera, or 24+16MP dual cameras, the chipset gives device makers more design flexibility. Its three ISPs are tuned to provide significant power savings, reducing consumption by 18 percent compared to previous Helio generation dual-camera setups.

Seamless Connectivity

Helio P70 comes with a 4G LTE modem and 300MBit/s of download performance. Dual 4G VoLTE support provides a seamless user experience across two different SIMs for higher quality calls and faster connection times. Helio P70 also features MediaTek's smart antenna technology, which automatically uses the best antenna combination to sustain signal quality.

The Helio P70 is in volume production now, and is expected to be available in consumer devices by November of this year.