Specs revealed for MediaTek's 10-core MT6797 Helio X20 chip, Deca-core/Tri-cluster

Last week, we told you about MediaTek's new Helio X20, a 10-core chip. Today, some new information about the MT6797 10-core chip was revealed from a series of leaked slides. The images show that the MT6797 will include a pair of 2.5GHz Cortex-A72 cores, four 2.0GHz Cortex-A53 cores, and four 1.4GHz Cortex-A53 cores. Another slide confirms earlier talk that the chip scored above 70,000 on the AnTuTu Benchmark site.

The MT6797 will reportedly offer a 40% boost in performance when compared to the prior Helio X10 chips put out by MediaTek. That includes the MT6795 which is found inside the recently unveiled HTC One M9 Plus.

The MT6797 will employ MediaTek's Tri-Cluster CPU Architecture. The 4+4 A53 cores will use the big.LITTLE architecture to provide a balance of power and efficient battery use. The chip will be produced using TSMC's 20nm process and does support LTE-A/Cat. 6. The latter provides data speed as fast as 300Mbps.

Mass production of the MT6797 is expected to begin in July, which means it could be the end of the year before manufacturers start using the chip inside new smartphones. The big question is whether MediaTek can break into the U.S. market and provide a real challenge to Qualcomm.