Fabless semiconductor company MediaTek today announced the availability of the MT6575, its 3rd generation platform for mid and entry-level Android smartphones.

The MT6575 platform offers a 1GHz ARM Cortex A9 processor, a 3G/HSPA modem and runs the latest "Ice Cream Sandwich" Android 4.0 release.

A significant growth in entry and mid-level smartphones, with wholesale prices under US$190, over the coming years is expected, according to Strategy Analytics.

For mid-range smartphones, the MT6575 platform supports 720p high‐definition video playback and recording with an 8MP camera and qHD (960x540) displays via a PowerVR SGX Series5 GPU (graphics processing unit) from Imagination Technologies. Using industry-standard benchmark tests, Mediatek found that the MT6575 offered over 35% improvement for browser applications and over 20% improvement in other competitive platforms.

Additionally, the MT6575 platform provides built-in support for features such as integrated capabilities to drive 3D displays and proprietary algorithms for mobile display picture processing.

The MT6575 platform also supports entry-level smartphones with smaller display sizes, lower resolution, less memory and reduced multimedia requirements. In addition, the MT6575 boasts very low power consumption and comprehensive integration of hot swap dual-SIM capability compatible with the Android platform. With the MT6575 dual-SIM solution, users will no longer have to worry about dropped calls while active data transfer is happening on either SIM card, and will experience automatic resumption of data exchange once calls on the other SIM card have ended, in addition, with the hot swap feature enabled, the SIM card can be inserted without switching off the mobile.

The MT6575 is currently being incorporated into the latest smartphone offerings by many of MediaTek?s customers and the first smartphone models based on this new platform will hit the market in the first quarter of 2012.