Tegra

Microsoft is providing Windows 8 test PCs based on silicon from Qualcomm and Nvidia in an invitation-only seeding program.

The two chip suppliers are working with Microsoft to provide test PCs to select developers to test and optimize apps for future Windows on ARM PCs and tablets, both companies announced today.

Windows 8 marks the first time that a mainstream Windows operating system will run on processors from ARM chip suppliers in addition to those from Intel and AMD.

In Qualcomm's case, a pre-release version of Windows on ARM will run on a PC with a Snapdragon S4 MSM8960 … Read more

Nvidia's Tegra 3 processor will be making an appearance on a host of mobile devices this year, and when that happens, it will no longer come with its clumsy architecture branding.

The chipmaker announced yesterday that it has ditched "variable symmetric multiprocessing," "companion core," and even "ninja core," to describe Tegra 3's architecture. Nvidia will now describe it as the "4-Plus-1" architecture.

"The reason is that, the more popular this technology became, the more our customers wanted a name for it that's unique and descriptive," Nvidia wrote … Read more

Smartphone maker HTC might go big at Mobile World Congress with a One X handset boasting quad-core horsepower.

Time is certainly ripe for HTC to wow the world with new cutting-edge mobile hardware. Its rivals, Motorola, Samsung, and Sony, have been hard at work churning out a number of fresh phones such as the Droid Razr Maxx, Droid 4, Galaxy Note, and Xperia S. It's enough for HTC devotees to wonder what the company is up to.

Looks like HTC fans won't have to wait long. Multiple gadget blogs such as Pocket-lint, Slashgear, and Pocketnow report that the … Read more

Nvidia is eying a market for inexpensive dual-core smartphones that underprice the iPhone 4S by a wide margin.

That phone segment, which the graphics chipmaker calls the "1,000 RMB phone" in China, will use Nvidia's dual-core Tegra 2 processor paired with a 3G modem, according to Chief Executive Officer Jen-Hsun Huang, who spoke during the earnings conference call this afternoon. RMB refers to the Chinese currency.

RMB 1,000 is about 75 percent less than the price of an iPhone 4S, which currently retails for RMB 4,988 in China.

"That's a pretty exciting … Read more

Despite the fact that Nvidia is keeping mum about which devices will feature its Tegra 3 processor at Mobile World Conference, a recent leak suggests that a new high-end LG phone may be in for consideration.

According to MoDaCo.com, the LG X3 is slated to appear at MWC sporting a 4.7-inch HD screen, a 2000 mAh battery, and (most impressively) a quad-core processor.… Read more

Will Apple's next iPad reach performance nirvana with a monster quad-core chip? Nirvana, maybe, but not necessarily via quad-core.

But let's put aside whether Apple's latest chip will be quad-core for a minute and look at what others are doing. (See a post at The Verge on this topic too.)

One of the leading lights among ARM processor suppliers is Texas Instruments. They've made it clear that they're not going quad-core this year and not even next year (necessarily) with their first next-gen OMAP5 chips.

In a CES demo, TI showed off the next-gen OMAP5 … Read more

Besides selling electric cars, Tesla Motors is doing something that hasn't been done in the U.S. in a long, long time: a new American car company is starting production at a new U.S. manufacturing plant.

That is indeed an extremely rare event in the U.S. these days, as a Tesla representative pointed out to me at CES. Especially in California which, for much of the last century, was a manufacturing base for General Motors, Ford, and Chrysler. (See list of past U.S. auto factories.)

That Tesla factory, by the way, is the former NUMMI assembly … Read more

LAS VEGAS--Fujitsu's prototype Android smartphone highlights that quad-core processing in smartphones is just around the corner.

Set up in the company's booth at CES, Fujitsu claimed the powerhouse device ran Nvidia's latest Tegra 3 CPU and was contained under a solid block of transparent glass. The phone's few connections to the outside world were an HDMI port linking it to an HDTV along with Bluetooth wireless to speak to a wireless gamepad.

The Fujitsu rep I spoke to eagerly touted the phone's impressive horsepower provided by its four main computing cores running in tandem. A … Read more

LAS VEGAS--Intel badly needs a way into the mobile business, and it may have found it through Motorola Mobility.

Intel and Motorola today announced a multiyear, multidevice partnership in which Motorola would use Intel's processors to power its Android products. The two companies are planning to show off a device later this year, but they didn't specify whether it would be a tablet or a smartphone.

A tie-up with Motorola is a major coup for Intel, which has struggled to get companies to use its processors for mobile devices. Its chips, which run on an architecture type known … Read more