Nvidia to ship Tegra chip by mid-2009, CEO says

07.11.2008
Nvidia plans to ship its new Tegra system-on-a-chip for mobile devices by the middle of next year, the company's CEO said on Thursday.

The coming-out party for Tegra will be in the spring of 2009, said Jen-Hsun Huang, Nvidia's president and CEO, during a conference call to discuss its financial results. Spring in the U.S. runs from about April to June. Development of the chip is going well, he said.

Announced earlier this year, Tegra puts an Arm processor core, a GeForce graphics core and other components, including a high-definition video decoder, onto a single chip. The product lineup will include the Tegra 600 running at 700MHz and the Tegra 650 running at 800MHz. It will also include the Tegra APX 2500.

Tegra will put Nvidia in direct competition with Intel, which released its low-power Atom processors earlier this year. Apple is also taking a stab at the mobile chip market, using the acquisition of PA Semi earlier this year to develop systems-on-chips for the iPhone.

There are big expectations on Tegra as a major revenue generator for Nvidia next year, Huang said. On Thursday the company announced revenue for its third quarter of US$897.7 million, down 20 percent from the sale quarter the year before. Net income was $61.7 million, down from $235.7 million last year.