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.
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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] 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.[4][5] 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.[6] 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.[7]
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.[8][9]
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).[10]
The second generation Tegra SoC has a dual-core ARM Cortex-A9 CPU (lacking ARMs advanced SIMD extension, marketed as NEON), an ultra low power (ULP) GeForce GPU with 4 pixel shaders + 4 vertex shaders,[12] a one-channel memory controller with either LPDDR2 at 600 MHz or DDR2 at 667 MHz, a 32KB/32KB L1 cache per core and a shared 1MB L2 cache.[13] There is also a version of the SoC supporting 3D displays; this SoC uses a higher clocked CPU and GPU.
| Model number | Semiconductor technology | CPU instruction set | CPU | GPU (GFLOPS) | Memory technology | Production | Devices using them |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Tegra 250 AP20H | 40 nm | ARMv7 | 1 GHz dual-core ARM Cortex-A9 | ULP GeForce 300 MHz
(4.8 GFLOPS)[14] |
One-channel LPDDR2 600 MHz or DDR2 667 MHz | Q1 2010 | LG Optimus 2X, Motorola Atrix 4G, Motorola Droid X2, Motorola Photon, Samsung Galaxy R, Tesla Model S |
| Tegra 250 T20 | 40 nm | ARMv7 | 1 GHz dual-core ARM Cortex-A9 | ULP GeForce 333 MHz
(~5.33 GFLOPS) |
One-channel LPDDR2 600 MHz or DDR2 667 MHz | Q1 2010 | Acer Iconia Tab A100 and A500, Asus Slider, LG Optimus Pad, Avionic Design Tamonten Processor Board,[15] Exper EasyPad, Notion Ink Adam tablet, Olivetti OliPad 100, Point of View Mobii 10.1, ViewSonic G Tablet, Motorola Xoom,[16] Toshiba AC100, Toshiba Folio 100, ASUS Eee Pad Transformer, Advent Vega, Hannspree Hannspad, Aigo n700, CompuLab Trim-Slice nettop, Dell Streak 7, E-Noa Interpad, Malata Tablet Zpad, MSI 10-inch (250 mm) tablet, Toradex Colibri Tegra 2, Toshiba Thrive tablet, Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1, T-Mobile G-Slate, Lenovo IdeaPad Tablet K1, Lenovo ThinkPad Tablet, Velocity Micro Cruz Tablet L510, Dell Streak Pro,[17] Zyrex Onepad SP1110, Zyrex Onepad SP1113G |
| Tegra 250 3D AP25 | 40 nm | ARMv7 | 1.2 GHz dual-core ARM Cortex-A9 | ULP GeForce 400 MHz
(6.4 GFLOPS) |
One-channel LPDDR2 600 MHz or DDR2 667 MHz | Q1 2011 | Fusion Garage Grid 10 |
| Tegra 250 3D T25 | 40 nm | ARMv7 | 1.2 GHz dual-core ARM Cortex-A9 | ULP GeForce 400 MHz (6.4 GFLOPS) | One-channel LPDDR2 600 MHz or DDR2 667 MHz | Q1 2011 | Samsung SGH-i957, Samsung GT-P7320, Motorola MOTO XT882 |
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 underutilizing the CPU. According to Nvidia, this includes playing music or even video content.[23]
The Tegra 3 was officially released on November 9, 2011.[24]
Tegra 3 Devices:
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