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Nvidia's Tegra System-on-a-Chip
Brooke Crothers, on CNet’s nanotech blog, has published an interesting interview with Michael Rayfield, general manager of Nvidia’s mobile business unit. The interview provides a window into Nvidia’s plans for muscling into the netbook space.
Here are some of the highlights.
Nvidia is introducing a system on a chip called Tegra at the Computex conference which starts Tuesday in Taiwan.
Tegra is based on a processor design from ARM integrated with Nvidia GeForce graphics circuitry. ARM processors are currently used on smaller devices like smartphones and PDAs. ARM processors are famous for long battery life.
“The Internet is all about (Adobe) flash and HD (high-definition) now so we’ve built a platform that can do that,” he said. “There are two operating systems we support. Microsoft Windows CE and, as it becomes more interesting for large screens, (Google) Android,” Rayfield said.
Android will likely appear commercially in larger devices, such as Netbooks, by the middle of next year, Rayfield said. “Android, as it stands now, does not do hardware acceleration,” he said, referring to graphics-based acceleration of video and other multimedia applications. “We’ve already got 720p acceleration on Android internally,” he said. 720p is a lower-resolution standard for high-definition video.
Rayfield continued. “Android has got a roar ahead of it but I think it’s three of four quarters from a large-screen device. And the market wants something interesting before that.”
Mr. Rayfield goes on to predict that these devices will be offered by cellular carriers under private labels with screen displays up to 800×600 for prices comparable to today’s smartphones.
There is plenty more to read, so jump over on the link at get it all.
