The NVIDIA Tegra 4i is NVIDIA’s first mobile processor with an integrated modem. The modem would allow NVIDIA to bring next-gen wireless networking into the smartphone market. Over 200 engineers got straight to work once their package of new silicon chips arrived at SFO from Taiwan. These engineers sacrificed their social lives and sleep in order to develop their next-gen product.

The engineers came from all parts of the world. They worked diligently on testing out new features, stressing each component, working on the upfront designs of each part, and transforming this all into a working product. NVIDIA dubbed this process, “bringup”. They spent nearly 24 hours a day working on the chip, and saw all their hard work come to life when the chip booted into Android and successfully sent a message to NVIDIA’s CEO.

After successfully testing out the chip, NVIDIA’s system engineering team worked on developing several Phoenix model phones to show off the chip’s capabilities. By the time MWC rolled around, NVIDIA was able to show off the Phoenix model phone that was more than just a phone showing off a display loop. It was instead a full-featured phone that could be used and tested by the public. Be sure to check out our detailed review of the NVIDIA Tegra 4i to see what the NVIDIA team was able to develop. Also be sure to check out our Tegra Hub for the latest information in Tegra news.

[via NVIDIA]

What you’re seeing here is a demonstration done by NVIDIA at the official GTC 2013 conference. That the GPU Technology Conference, a multi-day event we attended with bells on – have a peek at our GTC 2013 tag portal now for everything we got to see – with more coming up in the future! The demonstration shown here is of a technology originally revealed earlier this year at NVIDIA’s keynote presentation at CES 2013 – head back to the original reveal post to see a whole different angle!

Here a high dynamic range scene has been arranged behind a device running the Chimera photography experience with an NVIDIA Tegra 4 (or perhaps 4i) processor inside. While a traditional HDR-capable camera takes two images one-after-another at different exposures and fuses them together, NVIDIA’s Always-on HDR feature works to take away the two negative bits involved with traditional HDR by allowing the following:

• Live preview through your camera’s display (on your smartphone, tablet, etc).
• The ability to capture moving objects.

With traditional HDR, if you’ve got someone running through the scene, you’ll get even more of a blur than you’d normally get because you’re effectively taking two photos. With NVIDIA’s method you’re capturing your image 10 times faster than you’d be capturing it without a Tegra 4 working to help. Because of this, when you’ve got a Tegra 4 processor in your smartphone, you’ll be able to use a flash in your HDR photos, use burst mode to capture several HDR shots in quick succession, and you’ll be able to capture HDR video, too!

We’re very much looking forward to rolling out with the Tegra 4 on smart devices soon – until then, we can only dream of the colors! Check out the full NVIDIA mobile experience in our fabulous Tegra hub right this minute!

The first one up is Burn Zombie Burn. Burn Zombie Burn, made by Tick Tock Games, is a survival game where you have to constantly fight for survival against a never-ending horde of zombies. It’s a graphics intense game with zombies always rampaging towards you. You’re given a variety of weapons to aid in your self-preservation, and of course, the more zombies you kill, the more achievements you gain.

Next up is Carie: Blood Mansion, developed by Neowiz. In Carie: Blood Mansion, you (as Carie) take advantage of your 2nd amendment rights as you blast your way through hundreds of enemies in this highly graphical, fun action adventure game. Those with a Tegra 4 processor in your mobile device will also be entitled to receive a free, exclusive map for the game, unlike those with a Snapdragon or an Exynos processor.

Dead on Arrival 2, developed by N3V Games, is another game based on a zombie apocalypse. This game is the successor to the original game of the same title, and it offers a boost in both graphics and entertainment. The game features high-resolution models and PhysX, promising much more intense destruction and violence.

Next is RPG CODEX: The Warrior, developed by Devclan and Playbean. In RPG CODEX: The Warrior, you battle you way through a slew of horrid enemies as you hunt for an ancient document lost after a war in Heaven. This game has beautiful graphics and it also utilizes real-dynamic shadows and HDR lighting. It’s all about hacking and slashing in this game. The graphics and gameplay will have you hooked for hours.

Last, but not least, is RU Golf, developed by Nutgee. In this game, you play one-on-one against another real-life player as you decide which one of you is the next Tiger Woods (minus the scandal). The new RU Golf will feature “dynamic specular lighting, soft shadows, and bloom and lens flare effects” to make this game much more beautiful, and polished compared to its predecessor.

[via NVIDIA]

What you’re going to see first here is a hands-on look at Tegra 4i as it runs on the Phoenix Developer Platform. What you’ll see is Real Boxing being played, this game not quite out yet for Android, but looking fantastic on the Phoenix. It’s important to note that while the software on this device – and the device itself – are not quite out in their final form, the setup we’ve seen here is monstrous.

Next you’re going to see a similar sort of situation, this time with an unnamed tablet running a full-fledged NVIDIA Tegra 4. This device is also plugged in with an Xbox controller and running Zombie Driver. You’ll see that with a massively impressive game like this – updated for the Tegra 4, mind you – it’s all good for the future.

Then there’s a video coming up with some power management demonstration action. You’ll find that the NVIDIA Tegra 4 has the ability – in a developer setup here, again – uses up next to no power at all when you need it. Now we’ve just got to see this excellence in final form in a real product! Not for some months though, mind you – NVIDIA doesn’t expect final form Tegra 4 or Tegra 4i products to be out for some time.

You’ll enjoy the following gallery especially if you’re a fan of up-close-and-personal action with processors. We’ve gotten the chance to capture both the Tegra 4 and the Tegra 4i as they’d appear in a board inside a mobile device. While this isn’t exactly how they’d be arranged no matter what device you’ve got, it’s nice to see how the 4i looks on its own, with the i500 modem built in, then the Tegra 4 with the Icera modem separate – it’s the right-most black rectangle above.

Finally – the benchmarks. You’ll find that the NVIDIA Tegra 4 mock-up situation the company has made up here is ready for action only in a very rudimentary sense. While you’re able to play games and rock and roll with benchmarks galore, you’re not exactly going to be popping this unit into your backpack. That said, you can see how NVIDIA’s next-generation processor is blasting forth here well before it hits a final product.

Stay tuned all week long as we continue to rock and roll with NVIDIA and the rest of the wireless environment at Mobile World Congress 2013!

With the Phoenix reference platform you’ll get an 8mm thin smartphone with 4G LTE connectivity as well as all the rest of the next-generation features the Tegra 4i offers. With the Tegra 4i you’ve got the NVIDIA i500 software-defined radio modem which gives you the 4G LTE you crave – this time integrated on the chip rather than separate. On the Tegra 4 you’ll also find compatibility with the i500, but in that case it’s optional and the end result is a significant amount larger physically.

As the Phoenix works with all of the greatest features the Tegra 4i offers, you’ll also find PRISM 2, DirectTouch, and Chimera – what NVIDIA notes is the world’s first mobile computational photography architecture. PRISM is a technology developed by NIVIDA back with the Tegra 3, improved here with the Tegra 4 family with PRISM 2 for more Pixel Rendering Intensity and Saturation Management than ever before, allowing the Phoenix to reduce backlight power at the same time as it enhances pixel color – the result being longer battery life than you’d otherwise get with the same “visual quality”, as they say.

With DirectTouch you’re getting touch responsiveness that’s made much less reliant on battery power as its offloaded to the Tegra 4i processor. This innovative technology was also introduced with the Tegra 3 – the last big boost here, on the other hand, is all new. With the NVIDIA Tegra 4 and Tegra 4i, and live in effect with the Phoenix, you’ll find NVIDIA’a own Chimera Computational Photography Architecture.

With Chimera you’ve got several new innovations made possible by the many graphic processing cores the Tegra 4i (or the Tegra 4) has available. With the Phoenix phone you’ll be able to use each of the three new abilities revealed thus far by NVIDIA: Persistent Tap-to-Track, HDR Panorama, and Always-On HDR. With the Tegra 4i’s Always-On HDR this phone’s camera always captures multiple exposures instantly, allowing you to see a final product that’s near-real vivid “similar to how the human eye sees the world” as NVIDIA says.

With HDR panoramic photos on the Phoenix you’ll be getting that same amazing instant-HDR processing you get with regular photos, but here in many different long modes. You can capture long photos side-to-side, up-and-down, or diagonally. Finally there’s tap-to-track technology here that allows you to attach a virtual sensor to whatever object you like – human or not – the camera continuing to keep focus as well as exposure levels based on that object.

Can’t wait to check it all out? Have a peek at our NVIDIA Tegra hub to follow SlashGear right up until and through the point at which we get our own hands-on opportunities with this reference platform in the future. It’ll be then that we’ll also find out how you will be able to get your hands on this device as well – good luck on that!

Tegra 4i vs Tegra 4

While the Tegra 4i (codename: “Grey” up until this week) is handling massive amounts of smartphones across the market across the world, NVIDIA’s Tegra 4 (originally called codename: “Wayne”) will be handling Tablets and what NVIDIA calls Superphones. This is a term NVIDIA has been using since all the way back when the original Motorola ATRIX was introduced to define their forward-looking approach to mobile computing. With Grey, NVIDIA retains a power greater than that of the Tegra 3 and gives it a boost while an i500 modem is integrated in with it.

The Tegra 4i works with R4 ARM A9 CPU architecture, this still employing 4-PLUS-1 technology with a fifth battery-saver core that works with low-power tasks for battery conservation. This is compared with the Tegra 4 which works with four ARM A15 cores (plus a fifth with the same technology onboard). The Tegra 4i also works with a 60 Core GPU arrangement rather than the 72 Core setup the Tegra 4 has.

Sizing up Tegra 4i

This little beast known as the Tegra 4i is what NVIDIA calls the “highest performing single chip smartphone processor [in the world]” when this article is published. While we’ll only be able to test this for ourselves when we’ve gotten our hands on the hardware, it would appear that their first show of power relies on the power per millimeter squared results from NV R&D, as you’ll see in a press deck shot here:

NVIDIA also shows a comparison between the S800 Krait CPU (used in some key competitor processors, mind you) and the CPUs of both the Tegra 4 and 4i. You’ll see here that the max Perf and Perf / clock are superior on the Tegra 4, while the size of the core is smallest on the Tegra 4i’s R4 A9 CPU, as is what NVIDIA says will be the raw ability to conserve battery power. It’s the Perf per millimeter squared, again, that shows the intense power of the Tegra 4i, working at more than double the ability of the Tegra 4 (based on size ratio, of course).

With Tegra 4i you’ve got a a new quad-core architecture with ARM R4 A9 cores clocked at 2.3GHz each. You’ve got your integrated i500 (Icera, that is) modem, and 60 GPU cores. Inside you’ve also got an integrated video engine, image signal processor, optimized memory interface, and some fabulous computational photography architecture (going by the name “NVIDIA Chimera”) as well.

NVIDIA Chimera

With the NVIDIA Tegra 4i we’re seeing another revelation in the abilities of the Tegra 4 family (including Tegra 4 and 4i at this point) to shoot great photos. With the reveal of the Tegra 4i, we’ve been shown (in brief) not only that this processor will enable phones to work with NVIDIA Chimera’s “Always On HDR”, but “Tap to Track” and “HDR Pano” as well. This is also the first time we’ve heard the brand “NVIDIA Chimera” attached to the suite of computational photography architecture features.

With Tap to Track you’ll be able to tap on your device’s viewfinder to keep focus and lighting based on a single object – and not just a person. Tap to Track is able to lock on to any kind of object and will retain a sensor on that object as long as it (or they) remain in view. This will be fabulous for tracking a soccer ball, for example.

With HDR Pano you’ll be working with panographic photos that collect multiple exposures instantly – not unlike the Tegra 4′s previously announced Always On HDR. Here you’ll get vibrant and wonderfully thick-colored panographic photos every time you shoot.

Phoenix Reference Phone Platform

With the Tegra 4i, NVIDIA begins creating reference platforms for each new processor. In this case it means you’ll be seeing a 5-inch display-toting smartphone with 1080p resolution across the front, an 8mm thin body, and 4G LTE connectivity. This device also works with PRISM 2, DirectTouch, and the full-on Tegra 4i build for NVIDIA Chimera Computational Photography Architecture use – snap away!

Wrap-up

In the end with the Tegra 4i you’ve got the second wing in a flying processor bird that is NVIDIA’s next-generation Tegra 4 family. With the NVIDIA Tegra 4i the company has presented their solution for entering the mass market in a way they’ve not attempted in the past. With this release, the Tegra smartphone floodgates can officially be opened.

Have a peek at the timeline below to gain more insight into what the Tegra 4 family is bringing to the market in the coming weeks and months. Expect the NVIDIA Tegra 4i to be in smartphones within the next few months and mass adoption to be on the market around the start of 2014.