nvidia

Nvidia to support Windows Phone only in 2013

September 12, 2011 | By Surur

German publication Heise.de managed to lay their hands on Nvidia’s internal roadmap which revealed that, while the company expected to support Windows tablets and Windows Phone smartphones, this is not expected to happen before 2013.

Support would be by the new generation of 28 nm Grey processors which includes 3G/4G modems supplied by their newly purchased Icera subsidiary which Jen-Hsun Huang, chief executive officer of Nvidia called “a tiny chip to address the vast majority of the smartphone market."

The chips are sure to feature multiple cores and GeForce class graphics, with the preceding Wayne Chipset featuring a unified shader architecture and support for CUDA.

We will likely see these chipset first in Windows 8 and Windows Phone 8 handsets, meaning the next generation of Mango and Tango handsets will likely remain Qualcomm exclusive.

Nvidia sees Windows Phone as a “growth opportunity”

September 9, 2011 | By Surur

Nvidia CEO Jen-Hsun Huang, not content with leaking possible Windows Phone 7/Windows 8 app compatibility also appears to be hinting at an expansion of Windows Phone 7 processor compatibility to Nvidia Tegra chipsets.

Speaking to investors yesterday, he mentioned the company expects to profit from Windows 8 tablets by creating Quad-Core Kal-El Plus chips optimised for Windows 8.

"The Windows 8, Windows on ARM, coming out toward the end of next year, or the year thereafter, is going to be a growth opportunity for us," Huang predicted.

He however also went on to say "And Windows Phone is going to be a growth opportunity for us."

Windows Phone 7 handsets have so far all been powered by Qualcomm Snapdragon processors, with the company working closely with Microsoft.

The company said:

“Qualcomm has a long history of working closely with Microsoft and we continue to support the launches of new Windows Phones based on our Snapdragon processors. We are excited about this next Windows Phone Mango release that will leverage the synergy of our highly integrated second generation Snapdragon solution and Microsoft’s Windows Phone software,”

It seems this marriage is set to become more open in the future.

Via Newsfactor.com

8

Nvidia CEO expects Windows Phone 7 apps to run on Windows 8

September 6, 2011 | By Surur

It has been widely speculated, but Nvidia’s CEO is likely the most authoritative source for the rumour that Windows Phone 7 applications will run on Windows 8.

Speaking to CNet News NVidia’s Chief Executive Jen-Hsun Huang said he believed apps written for Windows Phone 7 will run on Windows 8, which is an operating system designed for both PCs and tablets.

Microsoft has already shown Windows 8 tablets running on Nvidia quad-core processor boards, and the company likely has a lot of insight into the development of Microsoft’s next big OS.

He spoke of the opportunity now being presented to the company due to its ARM chipsets.

"We’re the only person actively on the dance floor with Qualcomm," he said. "We’ll be quite a force to contend with."

Likely referring to Intel, he observed "If you don’t have a mobile strategy, you’re in deep turd. If you’re not in mobile processors now, you’re seven years too late."

Windows 8 running on ARM will have the problem of incompatibility with x86 software, the bulk of the millions of Windows applications. Having compatibility with Windows Phone 7 applications will give the app store an immediate jump start, with applications already designed for mobile and touch. Rumours however of the user interface not being Silverlight based has however poured some cold water on the idea.

We expect a lot will be clarified in the Microsoft BUILD conference next week, running from the 13th to the 16th September.

9

Tegra II officially announced

January 8, 2010 | By WenWP

We have known about this powerful processor chip for some time now, but yesterday Nvidia made it official. The system on a chip features 4 Cortex A9 cores, and can play HD videos at 1080P and process demanding 3D graphics without breaking a sweat.

Nvidia claims the new chip will even outperform an Intel Atom, as can be seen on this chart below.

Tegra 2 will be made with a more advanced 40-nanometer process than its predecessor which was sized at 65-nanometer. The chip is showing up in many tablet and slate devices, and appears to be aimed directly at taking on the desktop processors in these niches.

Tegra 2, with double the power being announced at CES 2010

December 16, 2009 | By Surur

Nvidia has been talking about their Tegra roadmap since earlier this year, and now they have made things a bit more official. According to Michael Hara, senior vice president of investor relations and communications at the company, a major announcement is coming in at CES.

“At CES we are going to make a major announcement about Tegra family. It is highly possible that we will see some very interesting form-factors coming out at the same time. [There will be products] shown by our partners using the next-generation Tegra device. You are going to see roll-outs and deployments of tablet PCs, smartbooks, netbooks, MIDs throughout the first half [of the year]; and then you will see major roll-outs of smartphones in the second half” Michael Hara, senior vice president of investor relations and communications, NVIDIA

The second generation of Tegra devices is expected to have double the power of today’s chipsets, and have a more modern ARM instruction set.

“You want to have fast response times and switching between your windows [on the desktop], you want to see high-definition videos, you want to see high-definition images, so, your experience is about HD Internet. Our objective with Tegra is to deliver the same experience to your handheld devices” Michael Hara

Devices featuring the chip are expected to arrive towards the end of 2010. One do however need to bear in mind however that Nvidia has been promising many more Tegra devices than they have actually delivered this year, and face formidable competition from Qualcomm and Texas Instruments, who appear to have better industry relations than the company.

Source: Slashgear via WMExperts.com

5

Tegra 2 brings speed demon to Mobile Phones

November 7, 2009 | By WenWP

NVIDIA is a company that has recently been taking on some more established mobile processor companies like Qualcomm and others. The original Tegra has however met with only limited success, famously mainly finding a home in the new ZuneHD. They have now pre-announced a new power house processor meant to take on the incumbents. The Tegra 2 is set to have a dual core processor that will double the performance and graphics of its predecessor, the original Tegra chip, and finally bring the ARM processor core up to date.

The chip is currently strongly rumoured for the new Nintendo DS, and of course the company already has a sterling relationships with Microsoft, so we could very well see the processor show up in a Windows Mobile smartphone sooner than later. Certainly we know Windows Mobile 7 will demand a processor at least of the class of the original Tegra, and at the rate the OS ship date is slipping, the chip may be ready around the same time the new OS will be.

Remember, if the stupendous HTC HD2 is only the Star, imagine what the Superstar will be capable of!

LinkedIn profile confirms Tegra on Windows Mobile 7

September 22, 2009 | By Surur

Not that it was ever really in doubt, but after we have seen the amazing performance of the Tegra-powered ZuneHD it is nice to see confirmation that Windows Mobile 7 will indeed by powered by this amazing processor.

Sanneblad.com did a search for Windows Mobile 7 at LinkedIn and revealed this interesting entry:

Sandeep Shinde’s Summary

I have 6+ years of Experience in Embedded Technologies – Windows Mobile, Windows CE, Embedded Linux, Multimedia Frameworks, Device drivers, and Post Silicon Validation.
I have worked on different Hardware platforms like ST’s Nomadik, NVIDIA’s Tegra (APX2500).
I have worked with STMicroelectronics as a Software Architect for Nomadik platform, and currently working as a member of Windows CE & Windows Mobile Software development team at NVIDIA. I am responsible for designing and developing the Multimedia subsystem development for Tegra (APX2500) on Windows platforms including latest OS Windows Mobile 7.

Sandeep Shinde’s Specialties:

- Experience in Design & Development of Multimedia frameworks in Windows CE & Mobile, expertise in DirectShow filters, Windows Device drivers, Windows CE & Mobile Multimedia Applications.
- Experience in Design & Development of Video framework & Base port for MontaVista Linux on NOMADIK.
- Experience in Post silicon Chip Validation

Sandeep Shinde’s Experience

Senior Software Engineer

NVIDIA

(Public Company; 1001-5000 employees; NVDA; Computer Hardware industry)

October 2007 — Present (2 years)

Working as a member of Software Multimedia Team for Windows Embedded CE&Mobile.

PDA.pl suggests the post also confirms the common base for Windows CE, ZuneHD and Windows Mobile 7, suggesting the new OS is not that far from market after all. Nvidia has said in the past that the first Tegra-powered smartphones should still be coming this year.

5

15 Tegra powered devices coming this year

July 6, 2009 | By Surur

In an interview with Mobinaute, Jen-Hsun Huang, CEO of Nvidia, talked about the upcoming release of Tegra powered devices.

Responding to questions about the seemingly slow roll-out of the chip in devices, Huang said:

“Today, we have already won more than fifteen designs, including the Zune HD but also other media players, smartphones and SmartBook, which will hit the market by the end of the year.”

We already know of 3 Win CE based devices running Tegra (The Zune HD, the Mobinnova Elan and the HTC Superstar) and given how the product was developed with Windows Mobile in mind I expect even more of the 15 will run our favourite OS.

Read the full interview at Mobinaute here (French)

4

First Tegra smartphone coming in Q4 2009

June 29, 2009 | By Surur

According to The Street, a Nvidia Tegra powered smartphone will reach the market as soon as Q4 2009. In an interview with Mike Rayfield, the general manager of Nvidia’s mobile unit, Mike said he expects the company’s Tegra chip to debut in a phone from one of the top five cell-phone makers as early as the fourth quarter of this year.

While The Street and everyone else is speculating an Android device, we know of at least one Tegra-powered Windows Mobile device coming this year, the Windows Mobile 6.5 WVGA 600 Mhz Nvidia AP16 HTC SuperStar. While HTC is not yet a top 5 cell phone company, they are at certainly top 5 when it comes to smartphones.

Via unwiredview.com.

6

Win CE better than Android, says Nvidia

June 18, 2009 | By Surur

Nvidia has confirmed it is working with Microsoft to optimize Windows CE for Tegra in so-called “smartbooks”, ARM powered netbooks.

Nvidia chose to work with Windows CE first, said Mike Rayfield, general manager for Nvidia’s mobile business unit, because it "is a rock-solid operating system that has been shipped billions of times."

Windows CE also has a "low memory footprint and a good collection of apps," Rayfield said.

Nvidia is also working with Google to accelerate Android when running on Tegra hardware. But it will be about a year before that delivers for smartbooks, due to existing limitations in Android, he said.

For instance, Android screen icons that fit on smartphone screens (usually 4-inches and under) are oversized on a smartbook’s 8- or 9-inch screen. Also, all video and graphics rendering in Android is done today by the operating system’s Java code, a technique he says is too slow for HD video.

"There’s no hardware acceleration. It’s all software," Rayfield said. "Everyone’s talking about Android for cell phones, but the reality doesn’t exist for the larger displays [of a smartbook.]"

Nvidia has garnered 42 design wins from 27 different manufacturers all building devices using Tegra, said Rayfield. More than half of the wins (26) are for smartbook or tablet designs. Those can arrive to market in just six months, versus two years for smartphones designed for telecom carriers, Rayfield said.

Rayfield echoed comments by Nvidia executives during its analyst day on Tuesday that Tegra could make up more than half of Nvidia’s sales ($3.4 billion in fiscal year ending January 2009) very soon.

"It’s an aggressive statement, no doubt. But we’ve got a pretty good pipeline," Rayfield said. Also, it won’t be long before consumers, rather than re-ripping Blu-ray movies to watch on different devices, will expect to be able to carry a single, HD-quality version of their videos around with them for easy sharing and viewing on large-screen TVs.

Nvidia is also improving Tegra for use on Windows Mobile, a close variant of Windows CE, for ARM-based smartphones. Tegra bundles an ARM CPU (the 750 MHz ARM 11) with specialized chips designed by Nvidia for graphics, HD video encoding and decoding, stereo sound and more. The next generation of Tegra due early next year will boast 4 times the performance of today’s version, while the 2011 update will improve performance 10 times over today’s, he said.

Tegra getting 4 times faster next year

June 17, 2009 | By Surur

Nvidia’s Tegra has hardly hit any devices yet, but their General Manager is already talking about the future of the processor, with chips being planned for 2010 which have 4 times the performance of current devices, while maintaining the same low power as current generation devices.

Who knows, by the time these chips hit devices we may even have actual 1080p screens on our smartphones to take advantage of all that power.

Via PDA.pl

14

First Tegra based netbook shown off- runs Windows CE

June 2, 2009 | By Surur

Well, well. For all the talk of Android powered netbooks, it was Windows CE running on the first NVidia Tegra device.

The Mobinnova élan is the first in line of ultra-portable computing devices powered by the NVIDIA® Tegra™ Computer-on-a-Chip. The 2 lb. élan is like a netbook in that it’s small, has a keyboard, and offers easy access to the Internet. However that’s where the similarities end. The élan powers up instantly, connects directly to a 3G wireless network, offers hours of continuous use, full page web browsing, and delivers graphics performance never seen before on a mobile computing device–all packaged in Mobinnova’s stylishly thin design.

"This truly portable device is a pleasure to hold and to use. It offers 720p high-definition video playback, full Internet browsing and an impressive battery life," says KC Kuo, Chairman and CEO of Mobinnova. "We like to say it ‘runs on fun’. It’s a real game changer."

The size of a hardback book and weighing less than 2 lbs., the Mobinnova élan is compact, quiet and cool. "It’s the most powerful mobile Internet device you can easily pack in your purse, backpack or briefcase. You can use the élan for hours, even days between charges," says Mike Holland, Vice President of Business Development for Mobinnova. You can also use it anywhere–on a plane to Nepal, at a café in Paris, on the sidelines of a soccer game, in a college dorm room, or sitting in bed. "The élan’s advanced power management means hours of viewing pictures, HD videos, Internet browsing, and reading and responding to email," says Holland.

The Mobinnova élan offers:

5-10 hours of continuous HD video playback on a single charge (dependent on screen usage).
Up to 24 days of continuous audio playback on a single charge (if screen not in use while listening to audio).
8.9 inch screen size provides a rich viewing experience and full page web browsing.
Ultra-light, compact design at 1.84 lbs (836g), 9.1 inches (232mm) x 7.3 inches (186 mm) x .8 inches (20.5 mm).
NVIDIA Tegra-based platform that supports accelerated Adobe® Flash® animations and 720p high-definition video playback.
Both Wi-Fi and 3G wireless connectivity, enabling you to check your email, social networking accounts, and do internet searches wherever you are.
An innovative 3D graphical user interface.
QWERTY keyboard and touchpad.
Ability to view Microsoft® Office® and Adobe® documents.
A webcam for sharing video.
Fast, high resolution photo rendering, upload, and download.
Fanless operation for a quite, cool experience.
Advanced power management, allowing the élan to draw as little as 50mW during typical operation and 150mW during video playback, a fraction of most devices on the market today.

Also being shown at Computex is the Mobinnova T8, which combines the same powerful platform with a 10.1" touch screen, GPS, and HDMI and VGA video output. "Mobinnova has designed several interesting Tegra-based, mobile Internet devices that will surprise the market with their sleek, lightweight design and long battery life," said Mike Rayfield, General Manager Tegra Business at NVIDIA. "Tegra adds the secret sauce to deliver a desktop-like Internet experience and cell phone-like battery life in these new designs." "The Mobinnova élan and T8 answer the portable communications challenge," says Mobinnova’s Chairman and CEO, KC Kuo. "We are honored to partner with NVIDIA to create products that make people’s lives easier, more productive, and more enjoyable."

Via Engadget.com

3

So what’s Tegra all about?

March 21, 2009 | By Surur

Now that we "know" a HTC device will finally ship with nVidia’s Tegra chipset on board, many who have not followed the issue closely may wonder that its all about. Here is a reminder of the features we expect the chips to bring, and a demo video.

NVIDIA HD AVP (High Definition Audio Video Processor) with NVIDIA® PureVideo® technology
- Capture or playback HD 720p movies with your mobile device
- Unprecedented picture quality and ultra-smooth, vivid movie playback with low CPU use and power consumption
Superior Imaging
- Take sharp and steady pictures with a 12 MP camera with a built-in image stabilization algorithm
- Integrated image signal processor (ISP) with proprietary algorithms that enables image and video stabilization, face tracking, and advanced trick modes.
NVDIA ULP GeForce technology
- GeForce graphics technology architected for low-power applications
- Superior 3D user interface capabilities based on a unique compositing framework that delivers seamless web browsing
NVDIA nPower™ technology
- Enables the industry’s longest HD video and MP3 playback on your phone or mobile device
- Optimizes system power use
True dual-display subsystem for flexibility of use
- Entertainment—watch a movie on an HDMI display and use your phone as a remote control device
- Business—present your proposal on a FWVGA projector using your phone as a pointing device
- Personal—show your favorite photos on a television while previewing them on your phone

I wonder if the Palm Pre took any inspiration from here…

By the way, not all media devices need to be devoid of keyboards…