Nvidia expects to do well in Windows-on-ARM race

http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9224786/Nvidia_expects_to_do_well_in_Windows_on_ARM_race?taxonomyId=75

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tegra

History

The Tegra APX 2500 was announced on February 12, 2008; the Tegra 6xx product line was revealed on June 2, 2008[1]and the APX 2600 was announced in February 2009. The APX chips were designed for smartphones, while the Tegra 600 and 650 chips were intended for smartbooks and mobile Internet devices (MID).[2]

The first product to use the Tegra was Microsoft's Zune HD media player in September 2009, followed by the Samsung M1.[3] Microsoft's KIN was the first cellular phone to use the Tegra,[4] however the phone does not have an app store, so the Tegra's power does not provide much advantage. In September 2008, Nvidia and Opera Software announced that they will produce a version of the Opera 9.5 browser optimised for the Tegra on Windows Mobile and Windows CE.[5][6] At Mobile World Congress 2009, Nvidia introduced its port of Google's Android to the Tegra.

On January 7, 2010, Nvidia officially announced and demonstrated its next generation Tegra system-on-a-chip, the Nvidia Tegra 250, at Consumer Electronics Show 2010.[7] Nvidia primarily supports Android on Tegra 2, but booting other ARM-supporting operating systems is possible on devices where the bootloader is accessible. Tegra 2 support for the Ubuntu GNU/Linux distribution was also announced on the Nvidia developer forum.[8]

On February 15, 2011, Nvidia announced the first quad-core SoC that will be used in many of the tablets to be released in the second half of 2011. The announcement was made at the 2011 Mobile World Congress event in Barcelona. Though the chip has currently been codenamed Kal-El, it will likely be branded as Tegra 3. Early benchmark results show impressive gains over Tegra 2. Nvidia initially claimed that Tegra 3 could outperform a Core 2 Duo processor from Intel, and released benchmarks with an underclocked Tegra 3 to that effect; later investigations proved that the Intel chip had also been handicapped by compiling settings (although the handicap to the Intel chip was noted in the details initially released). Code running on the underclocked Kal-El (running at 2/3 speed) had been compiled with a modern version of GNU Compiler Collection (GCC) and aggressive optimizations while that running on the Intel chip was produced by an obsolete version of GCC and only minimal optimizations. When the Intel code was compiled using the same flags as the code running on Kal-El, the Core 2 Duo was appreciably faster than at least an underclocked upcoming Tegra 3.[9][10]

Codenames of all upcoming releases in the Tegra series are references to comic book superheroes. Specifically, Superman (Kal-El), Batman (Wayne), Jean Grey (Grey), Wolverine (Logan), and Iron Man (Stark).[11]

In January 2012, Nvidia announced that Audi had selected the Tegra 3 processor for its in-vehicle infotainment systems and digital instruments display.[12] The processor will be integrated into Audi's entire line of vehicles worldwide, beginning in 2013.