Google Chromebook follows in Apple's footsteps, beefing up the ARM chips on which its future products will be based. Although now there are Chromebook laptops of different brands (ASUS, HP, Acer, Samsung, ...) and both based on x86 and some on ARM, the truth is that the ARMs were not too powerful for certain applications.
Now MediaTek, the designer of ARM SoCs, will create new, more powerful processors based on the 6nm node. It will do so in 2021, and the Chromebook will benefit from them. So that? Well, the pandemic has been partly to blame, since due to teleworking and distance education, the laptop industry has had a significant boost in 2020, and both Google and MediaTek want to take advantage of it with more attractive products.
This was revealed by Youjie, Senior Vice President and General Director of MediaTek's Smart Device Business Group, just at a conference held for the press in Taiwan and in which Quanta was also present, Google and Acer.
At that conference, he recalled the keys to these new Chromebook laptops powered by their chips, such as mobility and energy efficiency, WiFi 6 wireless modules, etc. In addition, he wanted to emphasize that the first Chromebooks with MediaTek used an 8173 chip created in 28nm, then going to 12nm with the 8183. Now it is prepared the 8195 in 6nm process from TSMC.
According to Youjie, these ARM chips will not have a performance less than traditional x86. If the performance is good, they could be an alternative for Apple Macs for those developers who want to work under ARM and not use cross-compilation ... Also, they will not be the only ones, after conquering the mobile sector, the trend of ARMs is on the rise both in the HPC sector and in that of home and office equipment.