Tegra Chip

Tegra developed by Nvidia is a system-on-a-chip series for mobile devices such as smartphones, personal digital assistants, and mobile Internet devices. The Tegra integrates the ARM architecture processor central processing unit (CPU), graphics processing unit (GPU), northbridge, southbridge, and memory controller onto one package. The series emphasizes low power consumption and high performance for playing audio and video.

Tegra 3 (Kal-El) series

• Processor: quad-core ARM Cortex-A9 MPCore, up to 1.4 GHz single-core mode and 1.3 GHz multi-core mode
• 12-Core Nvidia GPU with support for 3D stereo
• Ultra low power GPU mode
• 40 nm process by TSMC
• Video output up to 2560×1600
• NEON vector instruction set
• 1080p MPEG-4 AVC/h.264 40 Mbps High-Profile, VC1-AP and DivX 5/6 video decode
• The Kal-El chip (CPU and GPU) is to be up to 3 times faster than Tegra 2 (Measured with GLBenchmark 2.0 Egypt)
• Estimated release date is now to be Q4 2011 for tablets and Q1 2012 for smartphones, after being set back from Nvidia's prior estimated release dates of Q2 2011, then August 2011, then October 2011

The Tegra 3 is functionally a quad-core processor, but includes a fifth "companion" core. All cores are Cortex-A9s, but the companion core is manufactured with a special low power silicon process. This means it uses less power at low clock rates, but more at higher rates; hence it is limited to 500 MHz. There is also special logic to allow running state to be quickly transferred between the companion core and one of the normal cores. The goal is for a mobile phone or tablet to be able to power down all the normal cores and run on only the companion core, using comparatively little power, during standby mode or when otherwise using little CPU. According to Nvidia, this includes playing music or even video content.


The Tegra 3 was officially released on November 9, 2011.