Nvidia launched the Tegra 3 platform in November. Previously known as "Project Kal-El," the Tegra 3 packs in a quad-core ARM Cortex A9 CPU, a fifth "low-power" core for handling secondary tasks (such as playing music), and a 12-core GeForce GPU for graphics-intensive rendering. With quad-core chips, tablets should become more-capable performers that compete better with laptops than they do today.
Asus Transformer PrimeThe Asus Transformer Prime seems poised to be the first tablet to market to include Tegra 3. The Transformer Prime is a slimmer and redesigned version of the first-gen Eee Pad Transformer. The Prime is due to ship in December with an expected price of $500 for a model with 32GB of storage.
Nvidia may have an early monopoly on the quad-core chip market for tablets. Qualcomm announced that its quad-core Snapdragon chips for tablets won't be out until its Snapdragon S4 line appears in the second half of next year. Qualcomm has already spoken of its chips being used for Windows 8 tablets. Meanwhile, Freescale and Texas Instruments have both said that they also will have quad-core ARM chips in 2012.
We expect to hear about more tablets using quad-core chips--from Nvidia and other manufacturers--during the 2012 International CES trade show in January.
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