By now it's pretty common knowledge that Samsung's Exynos 5 Octa isn't really a true eight-core chip, only allowing either four low-power Cortex-A7 cores or four high-performance Cortex-A15 cores to be active at any time. So when Samsung announced that its Exynos Octa chip would soon be gaining the ability to use all eight cores at once – via Heterogeneous Multi-Processing (HMP) technology – and mix and match low-power and high-performance cores as needed, people rejoiced, while also feeling a bit disappointed as current devices like the S4 and the upcoming Note 3 wouldn't be able to get the benefits of a true eight-core processor.
However, if you were worried that HMP would need to be implemented at the hardware level and hence require a new device, then Chinese manufacturer Meizu has some good news. According to Meizu, HMP can be implemented through a software upgrade, and will be made available to the MX3, its current flagship that uses the same Exynos chip as the Galaxy S4. This means that we should see Samsung doing the same for its own devices, and it could be the reason why the Korean manufacturer is only showing off the new eight-core capability without naming a new Exynos chipset.
Well, here's hoping that software update arrives soon. Meanwhile, check out ARM's demonstration of how HMP works.
