tegra

As chipmakers trip over each other to announce tablet-centric chips packing four processing engines, it's not hard to see where a product like the Motorola Xoom is headed.

Where? The same performance space a mainstream laptop occupies now. A graphic Nvidia released to CNET shows its next-generation Tegra processor exceeding Intel's Core 2 Duo processor (the chip used in many, if not most, laptops today) in performance.

And Nvidia is claiming benchmarks back up this (see second embedded video below). Benchmarks aside, it's easy to imagine a future Motorola Xoom tablet crunching image data at speeds similar … Read more

With its Tegra chip already well-ensconced in some of the most highly anticipated tablets from Motorola and Samsung, Nvidia is keen on moving the market quickly to super-high-octane tablets packing quad-core processors.

Nvidia's dual-core Tegra 2 is already in the Motorola Xoom, Samsung Galaxy Tab, and LG Optimus Pad. Those products are due in the coming weeks and months.

Not resting on its laurels, Nvidia has started sample shipments of a quad-core Tegra processor codenamed Kal-El. "We're providing samples now to our customers. We're expecting the first products with this processor to be out this holiday … Read more

One of the most eye-opening, attention-grabbing pieces of future tech to hit CES 2011 was the Motorola Atrix 4G--not so much because of the phone itself, but because of its bold laptop dock, which promises a seamless transformation of smartphone into Netbook. Who needs a laptop, after all, when your phone can be both? Well, you've read Bonnie Cha's review of the phone. I'm interested, as a laptop reviewer, in how the Atrix functions as...well, a laptop.

The idea remains bold, and to Motorola's credit, the experiment has resulted in a product a mere month after CES. This laptop dock isn't vaporware. On the other hand, it isn't exactly a laptop, either.

A laptop, without the laptop What the laptop dock--or, Lapdock--is, in effect, is an extremely well-constructed dock for the Atrix phone, adding a long-life battery, a keyboard, a large touch pad, two USB ports, and a pair of stereo speakers. It looks like the Cr-48 Chrome OS laptop, and or even a sleek thin-and-light. At 2.4 pounds it's easy to tote, and has a sturdy feel when the lid is closed.

But it's not a standalone machine: The Atrix needs to be plugged in for the laptop dock to work. The good news is that the transformation is seamless and hot-swappable: Plug it in and the dock boots up. Unplug and the phone's back in your hand, ready to go. … Read more

Known for their small, slim Nettop PCs, the folks at CompuLab have come up with their tiniest and most energy-efficient computer ever.

Powered by Nvidia's Tegra 2 ARM-based mobile processor, the new Trim-Slice is 5.1 inches wide, 3.7 inches deep, and just over half an inch tall. And it squeezes a lot into that space.

The Trim-Slice combines its 1GHz dual-core Tegra 2 processor and a GeForce GPU (graphics processing unit) onto a single chip, saving both space and energy. CompuLab says the PC eats up a mere 3 watts of electricity when powered on.

Adding to the mix are 1GB of RAM and a 64GB SATA SSD (solid-state drive) for storage, along with two SD card slots and five USB ports. For connectivity, the slim PC offers built-in gigabit Ethernet as well as Wi-Fi 802.11n and Bluetooth. Positioning the Trim-Slice as a media PC, CompuLab has also outfitted it with both a high-definition HDMI port and a DVI port.… Read more

Texas Instruments admitted during an earnings conference call today that Nvidia beat it to market with the first dual-core processor for tablets. This is surprising statement from a company that has been in the business of building power-efficient chips based on the ARM design for close to two decades.

ARM is the basic chip design being used by Apple, Nvidia, Samsung, Qualcomm, and Texas Instruments for tablets. TI licensed its first ARM design back in 1993 (PDF). Nvidia, by contrast, is an upstart in the ARM chip market, announcing its first ARM processor only in 2008.

Nvidia's dual-core Tegra … Read more

Nvidia's $1.5 billion settlement with Intel on Monday and its drive to become a leader in the smartphone and tablet market seems to be playing well with Wall Street. Can Nvidia, a relative upstart in mobile chips, maintain this momentum?

The company's stock jumped about 15 percent today and the share price has doubled in three months. So, the burning question is whether this makes the longstanding PC graphics chip supplier, a relative newcomer to the smartphone- and tablet-centric ARM chip market, a small-device leader? The company's Tegra chips have been adopted by Motorola, for example, … Read more

Fujitsu Ten, a subsidiary of the Japanese technology company, is demonstrating at CES its new car-computing technology using Google's Android operating system and Nvidia's dual-core Tegra 2 processor.

The subsidiary, which focuses on car electronics, home audio, and mobile radio technology, said today it's working on three themes for its car technology: "linking cars with society," "linking cars with people," and "linking cars with other other cars and with infrastructure."

"One of the ways we are meeting the challenge is considering the future adoption of Android to improve automobile connectivity, … Read more

Motorola's upcoming tablet packs relatively powerful Nvidia 3D silicon, confirming a demo Nvidia did a year ago at the Consumer Electronics Show and underscoring the importance of graphics in future tablets.

The Motorola prototype running Google's Honeycomb, the next version of Android, was shown at the D: Dive Into Mobile in San Francisco Monday.

"We're taking advantage of the 3D processing power. The particular processor is Nvidia. Their dual-core 3D processor. These guys really know 3D," said Google's Andy Rubin when showing off a new 3D version of Google Maps, which is due for … Read more

Apple's iPhone 4 and Google's freshly minted Nexus S share a critical core component inside, underscoring Samsung's presence in some of the most popular devices on the market and how it triangulates relationships between its own products and chip customers.

Google makes no bones about what's inside its slick Samsung-manufactured Nexus S: a 1GHz "Hummingbird" processor. That's a close cousin of--if not identical in many respects to--the processor inside of Apple's A4 system-on-a-chip, as a TechInsights analysis (PDF) revealed earlier this year.

"It's common in the electronics industry for competitors … Read more