14 DAY TRIAL // Dual-core phones might be this year's great thing, but that won't stop manufacturers and chip makers from rising the bar for the next generation devices, that's for sure.
Some of the latest high-end mobile phones on the market today pack dual-core application processors from Nvidia, but they might soon be old news, as the company is getting ready to bring to shelves the successor of its Tegra 2 chip, which would pack a quad-core processor, the Tegra 3.
With Tegra 2, Nvidia showed a focus on the mobile space, where the chipset can offer both great performance levels, as well as impressive power savings, and the upcoming CPU might continue the tradition.
The company already confirmed a few months ago that it expects the mobile phone market to move to more powerful processors, and rumor has it that next month might bring us some more details on this.
Nvidia is expected to make a formal unveiling of Tegra 3 at the upcoming Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, though the first devices to include the chip might not be released on shelves for about a year or so.
“I'm going to come pretty close to my cadence of a launch every year,” NVIDIA's Tegra GM - Mike Rayfield, said in an interview with Hexus when asked about Tegra 3. “It will be in production around the same time as my competitors' first dual-cores will.”
Tegra 2 was launched at CES last year, and Tegra 3's arrival at MWC fits the time line, while also showing the company's focus on the mobile space, given the fact that the event is mobile-oriented.
Of course, the same as Tegra 2, the upcoming processor might be included in both smartphones and tablet PCs, but the line between these device segments in becoming increasingly thinner, and products like Dell Streak or Acer's 4.8-inch Android smartphone show that.
A specific release window for the chip or for devices powered by it was not offered at the moment, but the said event in mid-February might deliver more info on this. Details on the mobile OSes that would be compatible with the chip lack as well.
The processor would help Nvidia gain more ground on the mobile market, thought the road would actually be opened by Tegra 2, which was announced at CES 2011 as powering a great number of smartphones and tablet PCs.
Leading vendors like Motorola, LG, Dell, or HTC unveiled devices based on Nvidia's dual core processor, and there's a great possibility that they would also announce plans to adopt the company's forthcoming Tegra 3 chip for new handsets and larger products.