Tegra to debut in upcoming Microsoft smartphone

RUMOUR HAS IT Vole will be bunging Nvidia Tegra chips into upcoming smartphones and Apple's Iphone may follow suit.

Doug Freedman, an analyst from Broadpoint AmTech, told Cnet he reckoned a Vole smart phone would be announced at the upcoming GSMA Mobile World Congress in Barcelona in a couple of weeks. If this proves true, it will be Nvidia's second design win after HTC.

The Redmond Giant has apparently been working with Nvidia on its ARM-based Tegra chip platform, a project almost as dear to the Green Goblin as its precious C for Cuda.

Tegra is the result of Nvidia's efforts to incorporate as much PC functionality onto just one small piece of silicon, much like  Texas Instruments' OMAP processors or Qualcomm's Snapdragon.

Tegra is something of a ‘get-out-of-jail-free' card for Nvidia if the firm manages to pull it off, with Nvidia hoping the platform could generate a sorely-needed $100 million in the second half of 2009. This would mean a phone (or phones) sporting the chip should be out within the next six months.

With the economy tanking and the high-end graphics card market becoming an ever smaller niche, Nvidia is doing its utmost to branch out, but instead of thinking big, the company is thinking small. And by that we mean form-factor small.

The Green Goblin thinks it has a lot to offer the Mobile Internet Device (MID) market, especially in terms of graphics, and the firm is trying to cram as much processing oomph as is theoretically possible into a power envelope of just a few-hundred-milliwatts. Tegra APX will purportedly deliver 720p video capture and playback, as well as including 3D technology, whilst the Tegra 600 boasts HD 1080p video. And Nvidia isn't just sticking to graphics either, saying it plans to build all the core electronics that will eventually run on the MID too.

It is also pretty clear Nvidia has Vole squarely in its sights, and not many would argue that Microsoft's dull as dishwater Mobile Windows interface wouldn't benefit from an extreme graphical makeover, NV style.

As for Iphone-style devices, it certainly seems to be the direction Nvidia is keen on heading in, with the firm eagerly showing off touchscreen, accelerometer-laden devices since Nvision back in August.

Nvidia just better hope Tegra will show off the firm's true colours rather than leaving the Goblin feeling green under the gills. µ

L'Inq
Cnet