System on a chip infrastructures are all the rage with smartphone and tablet platforms. Employing them results in lower power consumption without sacrificing performance. MediaTek, one of the smaller players in the SoC area, is set to launch new quad-core SoC products by the first quarter of 2013.

DigiTimes reports that MediaTek plans to launch the MT6588 chip, which features a quad-core Cortex A7 processor running at 1.5 GHz or 1.7 GHz. The chip will support WCDMA and TD-SCDMA (used by China Mobile) network technologies.

The chip will also feature support for up to 1280×800 pixel displays, 1080p video playback and up to 13 megapixel cameras. The MT6588 will be manufactured using the 28 nm process.

Aside from the new quad-core chip, MediaTek will also release the dual-core MT6583, which will likewise run at either 1.5 GHz or 1.7 GHz. The chip will support a resolution of up to 854×480, which means the chip will target a different market segment, particularly lower-end to mid-range devices.

MediaTek general manager Xieqing Jiang was cited to say that the company is focusing on including LTE support in its chips, which can enable smartphone manufacturers to release lower-priced handsets that support this technology.

While most observers would consider Qualcomm and Nvidia to be the bigger names in the smartphone chipset business, MediaTek is emerging as a serious contender given the lower cost of its products. MediaTek currently leads the markt in supplying chips to feature phones, and its silicon also powers many low-priced smartphones. With their upcoming quad-core chip, MediaTek might just help bring quad-core smartphones to a bigger mass-market consumer base.