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Nvidia pushing tablets to quad-core chip this year

Nvidia's Tegra chip is already in tablets from Motorola and Samsung. But the graphics chip supplier is already looking to up the ante to tablets with five times the processing power.

Brooke Crothers Former CNET contributor
Brooke Crothers writes about mobile computer systems, including laptops, tablets, smartphones: how they define the computing experience and the hardware that makes them tick. He has served as an editor at large at CNET News and a contributing reporter to The New York Times' Bits and Technology sections. His interest in things small began when living in Tokyo in a very small apartment for a very long time.
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Brooke Crothers

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 season," an Nvidia spokesperson told CNET today. In a blog, Nvidia said that customers are "planning production in August."

The graphics chip supplier is claiming a five-fold increase in performance over the current Tegra 2 chip.

Nvidia is planning to move the tablet market quickly to quad-core. This will likely include the Motorola Xoom.
Nvidia is planning to move the tablet market quickly to quad-core. This will likely include the Motorola Xoom. Nvidia
Next Tegra processor will also pack 12 graphics processing unit (GPU) cores.
Next Tegra processor will also pack 12 graphics processing unit (GPU) cores. Nvidia

And it's a pretty safe bet that Nvidia's quad-core Tegra will make its way into tablets from some of the very same companies using the chip today. That would include Motorola, of course.

Qualcomm and Texas Instruments have also announced plans for quad-core processors, but shipment dates are slated at a later date than Nvidia is claiming.