MediaTek is expected to roll out its new Helio P70 mobile SoC built using a 12nm process technology later in October, aiming to maintain the shipment momentum of its mobile chips, according to industry sources.

The sources indicated that the configuration of the Helio P70 will be similar to that of the previous Helio P60, consisting of four Cortex-A73 cores and four Cortex-A53 cores paired with a Mali-G72 GPU.

The major difference is that the P70 will come with a discrete NPU (neural processing unit) as compared to a discrete APU (accelerated processing unit) used by the P60.

While the P60 has been competing with Qualcomm's Snapdragon 660 in the mobile application processor (AP) market, the P70 is believed to take on Qualcomm's Snapdragon 710, the sources noted.

In addition to the planned launch of the P70, MediaTek will also kick off volume production of its 7nm ASIC, built using its silicon-proven 56G PAM4 SerDes IP based on a 7nm FinFET process, by the end of 2018, according Jerry Yu, VP and general manager of the intelligent devices business group at MediaTek.

The 7nm ASIC reportedly has cut into the supply chains of the world's two leading gaming console makers, according to market sources.