Chinese chip maker Rockchip is showing off its upcoming quad-core RK3188 processors. The company expects to start sending samples to hardware partners in February, which means that we could see these quad-core chips show up in tablets and other devices in March, April, or May.

Rockchip has a demo of a touchscreen display hooked up to the new processor, but the software hasn’t been fully optimized to take advantage of the chip’s features… so it doesn’t really look like anything special yet.

Rockchip RK3188

The RK3188 is a 28nm quad-core ARM Cortex-A9 chip with speeds up to 1.8 GHz.

It has Mali 400 quad-core graphics with speeds up to 500 MHz, and support for OpenGL 2.0 and OpenVG 1.1.

The chip can handle 1080p HD video playback at 60 frames per second, or 1080p HD H.264 and VP8 encoding at 30 frames per second. It can also handle dual panel displays and resolutions up to 2048 x 1536 pixels.

Rockchip includes and embedded GPS baseband.

While Rockchip isn’t as well known in the West as competing chip-makers Qualcomm, Samsung, or NVIDIA, the company’s low cost chips have proven very popular with budget tablet makers. We’ve seen dozens of Chinese tablets featuring Rockchip’s dual-core RK3066 processor in recent months, and some relatively well known device makers including Archos using the company’s chips.

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6 replies on “Rockchip’s RK3188 quad-core processors coming in the first half of 2013”

  1. Sounds a bit last-gen compared to big-names but it will be certainly a higher-performance offering than the quad-A7 from Allwinner.

    I expect the Allwinner to be dirt-cheap just like the A10, so in Chinese tablets Rockchip may become the high-end. That is, unless Freescale decides to step-up its game for the i.MX6 and come out with higher-clocked versions.

    1. This will probably be the popular upgrade chip in 2013 for the new quad-core tv sticks. Dual core is getting outdated now.
      But you’re right, sticking still with mali-400, it still delivers but it’s old, what about mali-t604 or mali-450 MP? It shouldn’t be that costly for Rockchip to upgrade the Gpu.

      1. Rockchip certainly came up trumps with the RK3066, it really is a powerful SOC, lets hope that these new chips are as impressive as the RK3066 when it was first launched.

    2. hoping freescale does because Rockchip doesn’t give out info on its chip design which is why linux is only just coming out for this…

    3. Agreed…Rockchip certainly came up trumps with the RK3066, it really is a powerful SOC, lets hope that these new chips are as impressive as the RK3066 when it was first launched.

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