Microsoft's
Kin One and Kin Two might not turn out to be the most auspicious devices for
Tegra's debut in the smartphone arena, but NVIDIA seems to be learning from its mistakes. Admitting that the company committed too strongly to Microsoft with the first-gen iteration, Jen-Hsun Huang has now said that the second generation of Tegra will look to Android devices first and foremost. This newfound focus will materialize with both smartphones and
tablets in the third and fourth quarter of this year, and will, according to Jen-Hsun, offer device makers a viable competitor to
Apple's A4 SOC. In other news, NVIDIA has now shipped "a few hundred thousand"
Fermi cards, and has also achieved 70 design wins with its
Optimus graphics switching technology. Eleven of those are now out in the wild, but the vast majority are still to come, mostly as part of the seasonal "back to school" refresh at the end of the summer. These revelations came during the company's earnings call for the first quarter of its 2011 fiscal year, and you can find the full transcript at the source below.
[Thanks, TareG]
posted May 17th 2010 4:20AM
Oh snap. You're move, Steve Jobs.
@1230asdf Not really, this is giving current competitors an option to at least be competitive with Apple's custom built chips. In no way does it suggest that it will blow it away. The Tegra 1 is slower than the iPhone 3GS. The A4 is over twice as fast as that and Tegra 2 is supposed to be twice as fast as Tegra 1.
Logically A4 = Tegra 2.
As the Nvidia CEO said: "they need a processor that can keep up with the A4. If not, be much better than what the A4 can do because they have to take on the leader in the space."
Don't forget NVidia are a strong partner with Apple now.
Also, Apple's offering is out right now. We don't know when Tegra 2 will drop nor how it will run the software it's aiming at.
Until we see a complete Tegra 2 product actually running apps and available to buy, how can Apple make a move in return? The competition actually has to do something first.
@TinWard Sensible post. I don't expect Apple to sit on their laurels. I'm sure they're working on improving their chips as well. The issue with the apple haters (typically android fanboys) versus the apple fanboys is getting so old and annoying these days. Use what you like. Celebrate competitions. It benefits all of us that companies are out there competing mightily with each other.
@TinWard Erm, no. Your sense of proportions is off. A4 is far faster than the Tegra 1 than just 2x and Tegra 2 is a far greater increase in performance vs Tegra 1 than 2x.
A4 is based on a 1 GHz Cortex A8, Tegra 2 on dual-1GHz Cortex A9's. The A9 is roughly a 25% increase in performance clock-for-clock vs the A8.
Makes me think twice about the 4G, then the third thought is i still want it meow.
@NeatOman I meant EVO 4G
@NeatOman The 4G will still be a rock-solid device regardless. It's incredibly fast already... not to mention Froyo is claiming that 450% speed upgrade. And I think this bad boy will eventually get to 2.2 if not further.
@kpenning
Yea then when HTC comes out with their next "best phone ever!!" and u have to wait a year for android 2.3 because they're pushing their new phone, you will be pissed. Who knows when they will get 2.2 working, probably like 6 months.
good luck with that
/\/\/\/\/\/\ EVO 4G
@ddddd Apple is not the king the hype makes Apple the so-called Empire people want to be different and if everybody is walking around with a iphone they are not different Android and WM7 gives people this difference with a firm and a stable Phone OS structure overall is what will win in the end.
Uhh kin is not a smart phone
but its good to see some one actually attempting to compete with the A4
@Nerd With Out A Cause
its as much of as smart phone as thr original iphone.
Nvidia make some excellent products, but I'm still smarting from the GPU debacle of yesteryear which killed 2 PC laptops and 2 Macbook Pros.
It's made me that bit more wary of the company. That said Tegra is going great guns and makes Nvidia a good potential acquisition for someone.......................like Google.
@BurtonBytes
Wait, why would you want Google to be in charge of a graphics card company?
@insky
to be honest I'd personally hate Google to buy them but if your google and your platform becomes semi-dependant on a component like Tegra, if Nvidia is going cheap then why not? Vertical Integration is an important strategic route and google currently is getting more and more dependant on key hardware for it's products. Personally if I were google I'd be looking at htc. Google run a risk of without some form of inhouse hardware manufacturing facilities.
@BurtonBytes Ummm I agree with your thinking friend but *cough uhhh do you not hear yourself? That sounds like the foundation of a monopoly there my friend :p
Even though I whole heartedly love Google I love competition
@ike760
I'm sorry but Google is a monopoly as it stands right now in terms of devolved internet services and online advertisement.
This is the thing, these days legislators are far less concerned about going after firms for having a monopoly both natural or artificial.
Google purchasing one chip maker would in no way give them a monopoly than anyone else. It would be no different than APple purchasing PA Semi which itself had many 1000's of customers including the US Army and sub contractors. Google would have to honour existing contracts...but as I say I'm not for it but think they'd have no problems making the purchase.
@Doctor Kwame Nkrumah
It isn't... But it does feature a neat white Apple logo on it.
There's no point to competing with Apple here. Why compete with a platform that won't be used in other companies products?
@jordanbiffle
i was thinking the same thing - it's not like apple's gonna suddenly ditch the a4 for a tegra, and the a4 isn't even an option to consider for anyone else, so how does it benefit nvidia if/when the tegra is better than the a4?
@mrqs True. But it matters in terms of competition between iPhone and Android. Who has the fastest phone is a big deal to a lot of people.
@jordanbiffle Don't forget that the A4 design is a quick and dirty interim step between vanilla ARM and PA Semi's top secret next-gen SoC. Apple acquired PA Semi in 2008, it takes about 3 years to develop and mass produce an all-new SoC design, so 2011 is when the "real" Apple chip should hit the market. Maybe even on time to steal about 95% of the thunder from CES, if Steve announces iPad 2.0 after CES is over.
Apple snapped up Intrinsity to massage the reference ARM A8 to be fast and efficient enough for iPad and iPhone 4G. The result is the A4. Next year the PA Semi design will hit the streets, and everyone else, NVIDIA and Intel included, will be playing catch-up all over again. (And by then, Apple could be America's biggest corporation in stock market capitalization, BTW.)
The more things change yadda yadda...
@RabidAppleFanboi
yes with the exception that the key players of PA semi has jumped ship thereby forcing apple to acquire intrinsity to pick up after the PA semi folks.
@RabidAppleFanboi: Unless Apple plans on selling said SoC, your point is irrelevant.
@RabidAppleFanboi
You are forgetting that the A4 is probably quite similar to the Hummingbird design they helped Samsung and friends with. When Apple bought PA Semi, the people from PA Semi didn't have to start over desiging all things, they could also just use whatever they were already working on. And it would make no sense for Apple to use a 'quick and dirty interim' chip in an end product. I think Apple does many things wrong, but using sub-par hardware is just not one of them.
@kpenning
Haha, the "fastest phone" is not a concern at all for most people.
@kpenning
I doubt if many consumers except rabid fanboys walk around shouting, "I have the fastest smartphone." I'm sure there are certainly more issues of using a smartphone than speed alone. Certainly users don't want trade speed for shortened battery life. A well-tuned user interface doesn't require a super-fast processor. They'll still need a decent amount of usable RAM. I believe even the fastest smartphones can have a sluggish UI. Does anything except watching HD videos or Flash usage require more than a 1GHZ processor? I'm sure most consumers just want a smartphone that's nimble in most situations and doesn't crash. This chip wars thing is getting a little out of hand.
@kpenning Disclaimer: That source may be totally flawed. Web-page load time is dependent on a good amount of stuff. But it is probable that the A4 is a tad faster.
@ddddd NVIDIA just said Tegra 2 will be used with Android. Nobody can't say anything about how smooth it will operate. We all know iPhone is still the King when it comes to user experience and 4th generation iPhone and iPhone OS 4 this summer are going to be even better.
@TheOne Wrong. It's the user experience, not technobabble, that wins in the marketplace. And a massive component of that marketplace-winning user experience is the infrastructure supporting the mobile device.
So don't hold your breath waiting for Android Marketplace, or whatever it's called, to get as big and robust as iTunes + iTunes Store + App Store. On second though, please do hold your breath.
@kpenning Yep.. I think it's pretty important what kind of software they are using for rendering the sites and how optimized it is.. maybe if they all were using the same browser, it would be a good benchmark.
Correct me if i'm wrong, but apple devices render just what's on the screen, and when you scroll down, it takes a second or two for it to render the rest (and the little square tiles show), whereas with Android you can scroll anywhere without any of that.. but it's admittedly a little slower. Maybe a little computing power is saved there on apples side? I dunno..
now that's a good news, next i want to here android taplet. and 3ds
Soon we will have 1000+ android manufacturers vs one iphone. It is clear that the iphone will soon hit 5% market share, just like desktops.
@Atro Not if Apple sues them into extinction. Small matter of multi-touch being Apple intellectual property and all that. Good luck though, Porndroid, er, Android fanbois. I'm sure you'll quickly learn to master the stylus all over again.
@RabidAppleFanboi
You are indeed a Rabid Apple Fanboi.
@RabidAppleFanboi
Well you will be surprised if I tell you Im not a Google or Microsoft Fanboy. I actually use a Mac because its the best OS out there. And an HTC Desire because it is the best phone out there. If porn or lets say lack of it is the only reason youre hanging on to your iphone, then I really do feel sorry for you.
As to Doctor Apple fanboi, If you read my statement, it says soon :) Open platforms tend to attract small businesses which will eventually help grow the market share.
@Doctor Kwame Nkrumah: You know what is worse than a fanboy, a delusional fanboy. If you bothered to read his comment, you would notice he said "Soon we will have 1000+ android manufacturers".
@Atro
RIM? Nokia? Win Mob?
Even the world left with Android and iPhone, I doubt Android would get that much market share. Part of the reason iPhone success is not just the using experience of the phone but the iTunes Music/TV/Movie Store + App Store.
Yes I know Android App Store is growing as well, but it has a problem of fragmentation, there is three/four separate version of Android OS running and keep shipping out... there is no clear path/solution for older Android to upgrade to latest version (i know you can hack, but that's not for everyone), and app can not universe run on every android boz of a slight difference in screen size/features.
@RabidAppleFanboi
Don't ever jack-off. Daddy Jobs told you that is sin! The poor guy is getting old and has stopped getting a boner. So he wants everyone else to stop watching porns too. He is an aberration in free-world with all the closed system and all.
@Doctor Kwame Nkrumah
Take it kinda hard there man ;) I like it !
@krishansy You're a fool speaking out nonsense. Grow up.
@Doctor Kwame Nkrumah: Wow, Ignorance sure is bliss. Where did I say I agreed with his statement. And you wonder why you get downranked.
@Doctor Kwame Nkrumah Yeah your right android will never gain 95% market share, but it could gain quite a bit. For me it's never been about Android "winning" its been about Open Source Software "winning" or Linux itself "winning". And Nokia is helping that effort admirably. I just wait for the day, when phones based on the Linux kernel own the majority of the market, it will be a good day.
@Atro
I like those sort of odds. Apple pulling in 95% of the smartphone revenue while Android has 95% of smartphone market share. That means whatever gains Apple can make over 5%, they'll be bringing in that much more money. Having the exclusivity factor isn't a bad thing either. Apple is not suffering at all financially with a small desktop market share.
Android isn't making a cent for Google yet every sale of an iPhone makes huge amounts of profits for Apple. It's sounding like Android OS is becoming the new Nokia. Lots of cellphones sold and none of them are worth very much for the company bottom line.
@Atro
Doctor Kwame Nkrumah isn't a fanboy, he's a comedian!
@ddddd How old are?
The fact that NVIDIA wants to topple A4 with Tegra 2 is a testimony to the raw power of the A4 SOC.....
But what I found most appealing in this interview was him mentioning Tegra 2 making an appearance in Android 3.0 phones. That means 3.0 will be holiday season's Android version.
@TareG
Well it does make sense since the A4 is the newest chip out. Snapdragon being the fastest mobile chip until the A4. It'll be like Intel and AMD trying to outdo each other every quarter.
On current model phones and near future ones, snapdragon will be more than enough. There's very, very few things that will actually tax it enough to really take advantage of it. I have a HD2 and clocked it to maximum and frankly, it's not really necessary. Currently it auto steps the speed up and down from 778 MHZ to 998 MHZ.
Everything was so quick anyway before I disabled the auto-step down. The only thing that's a tad slow is google maps scrolling (checker board pattern) but I am sure that has more to do with the RAM than the snapdragon's performance.
All they have to do atm to make a snapdragon/android tablet work properly (smoothly) is double or triple the RAM and optimise the 3D drivers. It's got another year before the current market OS and software become bloated enough to need something more powerful.
The next few quarters will just be a pissing contest. Good for the consumer overall.
@ounkeo
Uh, dude, Android 2.2 (Froyo) already runs 450% faster than 2.1
http://www.androidpolice.com/2010/05/11/exclusive-androidpolice-coms-nexus-one-is-running-android-2-2-froyo-how-fast-is-it-compared-to-2-1-oh-only-about-450-faster/
I'd say Google did a hell of good job optimizing 2.2 for the hardware....