2013 Kindle Fire To Use New MT8135 Chipset

According to reports obtained by the Economic Daily News in China, the next entry level Amazon Kindle Fire tablet will be using the new ARM Cortex A15 MediaTek 8135 processor.

(UPDATED: The new $139 Kindle Fire HD was launched on September 25. Release/Shipping on October 2.)

Shipments for this chipset is supposedly only starting in 2014, so the credibility of this leak isn’t the highest. But that’s not to say it won’t happen. Naturally, semiconductor company MediaTek officially dismissed the report themselves.

Noel Hurley, Vice President of strategy and marketing for the ARM processor division, have however stated about the quad-core MT8135 CPU, that it features a MediaTek-developed four-in-one connectivity combination that includes Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 4.0, GPS as well as FM, and that this tablet processor with ARM big.LITTLE technology reduces processor energy consumption by up to 70 percent on common workloads.

This report comes on the heels of leaks concerning the updated new Kindle Fire HD 7 and Kindle Fire HD 8.9, in which it was reported that those two FHD Kindle Fire’s would be powered by the very capable Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 processor.

In addition, sales of existing inventory of various Kindle Fire tablets have become more frequent lately. The 16GB 7-inch Kindle Fire HD was put on sale on Sunday with a price cut from $199 to $159, while the 32GB model was cut from $229 to $189, making this the largest percent wise discount on a Kindle Fire tablet so far.

This could be seen as both an attempt to compete against the high sales of the recently released new Nexus 7 FHD (estimated to sell 3.5 million units in 2013), as well as be seen as an indication of the 3rd launch of new Kindle Fire tablets drawing nearer. Either way this discount put the Kindle Fire HD 7 back on top of the top 10 tablet bestseller list on Amazon, just ahead the Nexus 7 FHD.

For a quick intro to the new MT8135 CPU, see MediaTek’s official video presentation below.


– Jim Miller