tegra

Texas Instruments sent out a little reminder on Monday that it won't be a cakewalk into the smartphone market for newcomers Intel and Nvidia.

While Intel announced LG Electronics as its first smartphone customer and Nvidia hawks its initial mobile phone technology platforms to prospective customers, TI continues to upgrade its arsenal of ARM-design-based processors, which have been shipping for years to cell phone customers. (Samsung and Palm--and the latter's newest Palm Pre--are among TI's customers.)

At the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona on Monday, TI announced a new OMAP 4 mobile chip platform that will … Read more

Nvidia is working with Google on Android phones as it veers off from its Windows-Mobile-only strategy.

On Monday, at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Nvidia announced that it is working with Google and the Open Handset Alliance to get its Tegra processor into Android phones. Tegra is a system-on-a-chip that integrates an ARM applications processor and Nvidia's GeForce graphics silicon, among other functions. The goal is to bring robust PC-like graphics to small devices.

"We welcome Nvidia's support of Android on Tegra," Andy Rubin, Google's senior director of mobile platforms, said in a statement. … Read more

Updated at 5:45 p.m. PST with additional comments from Microsoft.

Nvidia's Tegra chip will be used in an upcoming Microsoft smartphone, according to an analyst at Broadpoint AmTech.

The San Francisco-based research firm also is speculating that Apple will eventually use the Nvidia ARM-based chip in a future iPhone.

Broadpoint's Doug Freedman said the Microsoft-branded phone would be the second Nvidia Tegra design win after HTC. "We believe the HTC ramp in '09 is the more material of the two as we have some concerns on the channel for Microsoft's handset distribution given the … Read more

Updated on November 25 at 11:00 a.m. with correction about Intel Moorestown chip and additional comments at bottom.

Rumors of an iPhone-style Microsoft phone running on Nvidia silicon add heft, in part, to what Nvidia has been talking about since early this year.

In the spring, Nvidia demonstrated its Tegra chip-based mobile phone prototype to me and pretty much anyone in the media who made a visit to its Santa Clara, Calif., headquarters.

(See CNET Reviews video of the phone.)

Nvidia has made it clear that the chip platform was targeted at Windows Mobile--a point that an Nvidia … Read more

It's been a big week for small systems.

On May 29, VIA formally announced (here) its "Nano" family of low-power x86 processors. These chips will be especially valuable in small laptops, UMPCs, and so-called mobile Internet devices (MIDs).

Then on June 2, NVIDIA announced (here) its Tegra 600 family, which is also being marketed for MIDs. But Tegra is a very different animal. It's based on an ARM11 processor core, which can run Windows Mobile or Linux but not Windows XP or Vista.

VIA's Nano processors are based on a new microarchitecture that is a … Read more

Nvidia is doubling down on its budding processor business for the next generation of mobile computers.

This week at Computex, Nvidia plans to show off its new Tegra brand for mobile application processors. Earlier this year, the company unveiled its first processor for smartphones, the APX 2500. It's now adding two processors to its Tegra brand, with plans to target the emerging Mobile Internet Device category, according to Mike Rayfield, general manager of the company's mobile business.

Nvidia is best known for its graphics processors, of course, but has been taking steps toward a mobile future since its … Read more