Nvidia has introduced its second-generation Tegra processor for mobile devices.
Nvidia CEO Jen-Hsun Huang explained that the chip marked the “beginning” of a massive tablet revolution.
“2010 will be known as the year of the tablet revolution. Our new Tegra processor helps meet the performance requirements of a PC, but maintains the power sipping characteristics of a cell phone,” said Jen-Hsun.
“This chip – which has consumed 500 Nvidia engineers – is nothing short of a miracle to us. Tegra has 8 independent processors and is the world’s first dual-core Cortex A9 CPU. It offers 10x the performance of an average cell phone, but still sips power like a mobile chip by consuming 20x less power than a PC. You can play 140 hours of music or watch 16 hours of video on a single charge.”
According to Jen-Husn, the low-power requirements of the new Tegra chip will help facilitate the “exquisite” industrial design of next-generation mobile devices.
“There are no heat pipes, fans are not necessary. Just turn it on and it works. Tegra is the missing link. It is the missing key ingredient that will allows users to enjoy a full web, movie or gaming experience on portable devices.”
To illustrate Jen-Hsun’s point, Tegra general manager Mike Rayfield connected a Tegra-powered tablet to a large screen TV and loaded a 10 megabyte stream that played flawlessly at 1080p.
Jen-Hsun then introduced Tim Sweeney of Epic Games, who showcased the ubiquitous Unreal 3 engine running on the new Tegra platform.
“Games can now be shared across a broad spectrum of devices,” said Sweeney. ”It is clear that mobile devices and PCs are evolving in lockstep. I would say that the mobile platform is only a decade away from meeting true movie quality for games.”
