14 DAY TRIAL // Forget single-core 1GHz+ smartphones available at the moment on the market. Forget dual-core handsets as well, even if today's headlines are filled with them.
Before Christmas, the first quad-core mobile phones should already be available for purchase, following the unveiling of the first quad-core mobile processor.
At least this is what chip maker Nvidia is aiming at, some of the latest reports around the Internet suggest.
Before that, we should hear about the first tablet PCs packing a quad-core processor that are headed for the market, Nvidia says, pointing at August as the production window for these devices.
During the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain, Nvidia announced the official release of its first quad-core mobile processor, codenamed project Kal-El, and the above assertion is based on this unveiling.
Kal-El would be the next generation of the company's Tegra super chip, currently available both as single and as a dual-core SoCs inside various devices on/headed for the market.
The new chip was showcased at MWC inside an Android tablet, with quite impressive capabilities, such as 1440p video content running on a 2560 x 1600 panel.
“That will enable mobile devices to output to the highest resolution monitors or tablets equipped with a 10.1-inch display with 300 DPI,” Michael Rayfield, who manages Nvidia's Mobile Business Unit (Tegra) notes in a recent blog post.
“I should mention, in passing, that this is the first mobile quad-core processor. And that it contains a new 12 core GeForce GPU. Our customers are getting samples now, and they’re planning production in August,” he continues.
This is only one of the new projects that Nvidia has in store for the mobile space, but it is the only one that should become reality this year.
Wayne, Logan, and Stark are other projects the company would push out in the not too distant future, with Stark expected to provide 75x improvements in performance over Tegra 2 sometime in 2014.
In the meantime, however, we should wait for the first Kal-El-based smartphones and tablet to hit the shelves. Before that, the entire range of recently announced dual-core handsets should be released on the market, as only one of them is on sale at the moment, the LG Optimus 2X.