Spreadtrum to bring AR to masses with its new SC9853I mobile SoC

Spreadtrum is trying to break the exclusivity of Augmented Reality to premium and high-end smartphones.

Can Spreadtrum give the Augmented Reality segment the much-needed boost? (AP)

Chipset company Spreadtrum is joining the Augmentd Reality (AR) bandwagon with its new SC9853I mobile chipset platform. The new SoC has been developed in collaboration with uSens, a Silicon Valley-based company that specialises in solutions for Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality.

At the moment, very few handsets have chipsets that have support for Augmented Reality and other futuristic technologies. And most of them are high-end devices.

Google and Apple are trying to make the technology widely available via their ARCore and ARKit platforms, which bring native support for AR at the operating system-level.

Spreadtrum is making the technology available to wider masses through the new chipset.

Neeraj Sharma, Country Head - Spreadtrum India said that the AR solution "not only runs smoothly in high-end mobile phones, but also shows strong adaptability and stable performance in popular mainstream mobile phones."

To run the solution, the basic requirements that a smartphone needs are accelerator and gyroscope, common sensors available on most of the budget and mid-range smartphones. On the software front, the solution is compatible with a smartphone running an Android version as old as Android 5.0 Lollipop.

"We are in discussions with a couple of ODMs to make this pre-installed smartphone AR technology available in India" - Neeraj Sharma, Country Head - Spreadtrum India.

And unlike Google and Apple AR platforms, Spreadtrum claims its solution excels in minimal CPU utlisation.

"ARKit developed by Apple only runs in iOS system and ARCore by Google is only applicable to top models in the market. Whereas the Spreadtrum-uSens joint AR solution boasts a more extensive algorithm, less restrictions for adaptive models, and lower CPU utilization (only one-fourth of ARcore in tests)," Neeraj added.

Spreadtrum SC9853I: Technical details

The processor has a 14 nm 8-core 64-bit Airmont architecture based LTE platform. The AR mobile solution reaches 1.8 GHz in dominant frequency, and is said to come with an efficient mobile computing performance and ultra-low power dissipation management.

Secondly, the self-developed core AR technology provided by uSens is based onmonocular RGB cameras, which is said to deliver a position accuracy of up to 1mm.

"This Simultaneous Localization and Mapping (SLAM) based inside-out 6DOF positional tracking solution is designed from the ground up for mobile devices through advanced machine learning and computer vision techniques to achieve high stability," said the company in a note.