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NVIDIA is getting rid of its cellular chip business
Alas, NVIDIA's one-time dream of hitting it big in the cellular chip world is not to be. The company is planning to "wind down" its Icera modem business in the second fiscal quarter of the year (that is, no later than July), which could include selling it off. Simply put, NVIDIA's priorities have changed -- it's focused on those areas where its signature graphics and mobile processors tend to thrive, including cars, gaming and the cloud. It's an understandable move given the lack of traction for Icera's parts (Qualcomm virtually dominates the modem landscape), but it's unfortunate for the roughly 500 staffers who may find themselves out of work in a few months. [Image credit: AP Photo/Mark Lennihan]
NVIDIA unveils i500 Soft Modem with Tegra 4, capable of pushing 1.2 trillion ops per second
NVIDIA's apparently still not out of news from its CES 2013 presser -- the company just unveiled the i500 Soft Modem chip. The soft modem, which is the fruit of the company's purchase of Icera and is utilized with Tegra 4, is a baseband processor that can do 1.2 trillion operations per second and is reprogrammable with software to work with a lot of different networks. The modem, which is 40 percent the size of a conventional baseband chip, is sampling to manufacturers this month. Follow all the latest CES 2013 news at our event hub. Joseph Volpe contributed to this report.
NVIDIA Q2 earnings bounce back through Tegra: $119 million profit on $1.04 billion in revenue
NVIDIA's fiscal performance in its second quarter shows the rewards of patience in the mobile sphere. It just saw its profit double versus a glum first quarter to $119 million, even though the company only slightly edged ahead in revenue to $1.04 billion. In explaining the success, the company is quick to point to a confluence of events that all worked in favor of its bank account: a slew of Tegra 3 phones and tablets like the Transformer Pad TF300 made NVIDIA's quarter the brightest, but it could also point to a much-expanded GeForce 600 line on the PC side and the shipments of the first phones with NVIDIA-badged Icera chips. The graphics guru expects its revenue to climb more sharply in the heat of the third quarter as well -- between the cult hit Nexus 7 tablet and a role as a major partner for Windows RT, NVIDIA has at least a temporary license to print money.
ZTE Grand X reaches UK shops a tad early through Phones4U
Virgin Mobile had originally promised the UK version of the ZTE Grand X for early August. The carrier just can't contain its enthusiasm: it's letting retail partner Phones4U sell the budget smartphone as of today. While you're busy skipping the start of the Olympics, the store will give you a Grand X for free if you're willing to spend at least £20.50 ($32) per month on a tariff instead of opting for the £190 ($299) pay-as-you-go hardware price. As we saw in China, the appeal of the Grand X is in those numbers -- it's more the temptation of stock Android 4.0 in a low-priced (if capable) suit than the hardware. Phones4U does hope to sweeten the pot through a contest. We hope you like the musical styles of Professor Green, as the British retailer is giving early Grand X adopters a chance to win both a custom Professor Green case as well as tickets to a private concert.
NVIDIA touts 30 Tegra 3 smartphones set for this year, teases next-gen Grey SoC with on-board LTE
We're nearly halfway through 2012, but for NVIDIA, it seems the best is yet to come. The company's GM, Mike Rayfield, announced today that 30 smartphones with Tegra 3 chips are now slated for availability this year, which is double the success that the company had with its Tegra 2 platform during 2011. Perhaps more interesting, Rayfield also let it be known that the Grey platform -- not due for arrival until next year -- will be the first of NVIDIA's system-on-chip designs to include a built-in LTE radio. Specifically, we can expect it to include the Icera 500, a next-gen LTE modem that's set to supersede both the Icera 410 and 450 designs. The Icera 500 will initially debut as a standalone unit, but will later be integrated into the Grey platform. All things considered, perhaps its 2013 that NVIDIA should be most excited about.
AT&T validates NVIDIA Icera 410 LTE modem for use on its network
NVIDIA, likely feeling the sting of not having an LTE presence on some of the biggest carriers in the US, announced this morning that the Icera 410 modem has been validated for use on AT&T's network. This particular chipset utilizes the carrier's particular brand of Long-Term Evolution -- in addition to HSPA+, UMTS and 2G -- which means that we should see Icera-powered 4G devices on AT&T's lineup sometime this year. NVIDIA has promised we'll see Tegra 3 LTE utilizing "partners' baseband processors" before we ring in 2013, so we're hoping this bit of news can help the company live up to its word. The press release is all yours to read after the break.
ZTE's quad-core Era hands-on (updated with video)
ZTE showed up to Barcelona and Mobile World Congress with briefcases overflowing with handsets, we stopped to have a peek at its newest which features a quad-core CPU: the Era. Running the Tegra 3 quad-core processor at 1.3Ghz with an Icera i450 HSPA+ modem, 4.3-inch qHD display, an 8-megapixel camera that'll shoot 1080p video and all that stuffed into a 7.8mm-thin metallic housing. We'd already gotten our mitts on a couple other ZTE sets by the time we ran into the Era, and as far as build quality goes it's head and shoulders above the others. The feel in hand is sort of reminiscent of the Nexus One: outstanding balance and weight. The display quality is bright and crisp and in the short demo we saw, the 3D effects on the home screen are absolutely fluid. We're looking forward to this set, or at least a chance for a little more time to get acquainted. Mat Smith contributed to this report.
ZTE Era flagship phone brings Tegra 3, 4.3-inch qHD display, 7.8mm chassis
We're just about to get hands-on with ZTE's latest high-spec ICS phone, the Era, but in the meantime here's a heads-up on the main credentials. The guts are all NVIDIA, with a Tegra 3 quad-core processor and an Icera HSPA+ modem. The display has 960 x 540 pixels spread over 4.3-inches of real estate, housed in a razor-like 7.8mm-thick (0.31-inch) slab. The 8GB of onboard memory is expandable via microSD, while there's also HD Voice and Dolby sound processing. ZTE will be looking to release the Era in the second half of this year, and says it's counting on the handset to help it become a "top three handset provider by 2015." More big words in the PR after the break.
ZTE to unleash eight new phones at MWC, hopes multi-core chipsets and LTE push them into third place
If the trio of slabs ZTE announced earlier this week weren't enough for you, sit tight, the outfit just announced it's bringing a total of eight new phones to Barcelona next week. The new handsets will reportedly flaunt multi-core processors, LTE radios and the latest versions of the Android and Windows Phone platforms. This announcement both echos and one-ups the recently announced Mimosa X, which gets its dual-core chops from an NVIDIA Tegra 2, but boasts only HSPA+, rather than the promised LTE. ZTE says it hopes the new devices will help it become one of the world's top three handset providers by the year 2015. Seem far off? Don't worry, at least the phones will be here by Monday. Read on for ZTE's official press statement.
ZTE Mimosa X official: ICS, Tegra 2, HSPA+ and 4.3-inch qHD display, arriving in Q2
And then there were three. Not 24 hours after announcing a pair of Android 4.0 handsets, ZTE is back with the Mimosa X, a 4.3-inch, HSPA+ device running Ice Cream Sandwich. Interestingly, this is the first time since NVIDIA acquired wireless chip maker Icera that we've seen a phone packing both Tegra 2 and an NVIDIA-made modem (in this case, the 21Mbps-capable Icera 450). In its press release, NVIDIA also goes so far as to say this is the first time "a premium mobile computing experience is coming to the mainstream smartphone market," as if Tegra 3 hadn't already pushed Tegra 2 down into mid-range territory. Anyhow, marketing spin aside, this is indeed a middle-of-the-road device, with a qHD (960 x 540) display, 5-megapixel camera and 4GB of internal storage. It also supports A2DP Bluetooth and DLNA, and makes room for dual mics and a gyroscope. No word yet on how much it'll cost or even what markets it'll hit, though we do know it will go on sale sometime in Q2. Until then, something tells us we might get our first look much sooner, sometime in Barcelona next week.
NVIDIA CEO sees major growth in mobile processing, quad-core tablets coming this year
During a sitdown with reporters yesterday, NVIDIA Chief Executive Jen-Hsun Huang discussed his company's near- and long-term financial outlook, while providing some insight into the chipmaker's quad-core future. According to Huang, NVIDIA expects to rake in between $4.7 and $5 billion in revenue during fiscal year 2013, with revenue from its mobile chip unit projected to mushroom tenfold by 2015, to a whopping $20 billion. Huang acknowledged that these predictions could be affected by external factors, including the ongoing patent wars between tablet and smartphone manufacturers, but didn't seem too concerned about their immediate impact. "At this point, it looks like it's much ado about nothing," he said. In fact, Huang foresees rather robust growth in the mobile processing sector, estimating that there are about 100 million devices that will need chips this year -- a figure that could soon rise to one billion, on the strength of more affordable handsets, efficient ARM processors and the rise of ultra-thin notebooks. And, despite his recent disappointment, Huang expects Android tablets to comprise a full 50 percent of the market in the near future, claiming that NVIDIA's Tegra chips can currently be found in 70 percent of all slates running Google's OS, and about half of all Android-based smartphones. In the short-term, meanwhile, NVIDIA is busy developing its quad-core mobile processors -- which, according to the exec, should appear in tablets during the third or fourth quarter of this year (quad-core smartphones, however, may be further down the road). Huang also sees room to develop wireless-enabled, Snapdragon-like processors, thanks to NVIDIA's recent acquisition of Icera, but he hasn't given up on GPUs, either, predicting that demand for graphics performance will remain stable. The loquacious CEO went on to divine that Windows 8 will support apps designed for Windows 7 (implying, perhaps, that Microsoft's Silverlight platform will play a major role in future cloud-based developments), while contending that smaller, "clamshell devices" with keyboards will ultimately win out of over the Ultrabook strategy that Intel has been pursuing. For the moment, though, Huang seems pretty comfortable with NVIDIA's position in the mobile processing market, citing only Qualcomm as primary competition. "We're the only people seriously on the dance floor with Qualcomm," he argued, adding that companies without a solid mobile strategy are "in deep turd." You can find more of Huang's insights at the source links below.
NVIDIA acquiring wireless chip manufacturer Icera, doubling-down on the post-PC era
NVIDIA, a company once focused entirely on giant graphics cards for home computers, has already quite successfully re-positioned itself as a player in the mobile graphics world. Now it's poised to really shake things up, announcing the acquisition of Icera. The UK-based company you've probably never heard of has a line of 3G and 4G baseband processors used in wireless devices and USB modems -- chips that are said to be smaller, more flexible, and more efficient than the competition from Qualcomm and ST-Ericsson. Icera seems to have been focused heavily on LTE of late, which puts NVIDIA in a good place to not only manage what happens to the data when its inside your next-gen phone or tablet, but to also control just how it gets there in the first place. A future Tegra SoC that handles wireless data too? Color us intrigued.
