NVIDIA Tegra 2 Promised For CES: Smartbooks, MIDs And Smartphones In 2010

Various mouth-watering rumors about NVIDIA's next-gen Tegra 2 chipset have been circulating recently, but the company is promising not only details of their HD-capable low power chips at CES 2010 in January but hardware from OEM partners.  According to Michael Hara, senior vice president of investor relations and communications at the company, the first half of 2010 will see the launch of tablet PCs, smartbooks, netbooks and MIDs all based on Tegra 2.

"At CES we are going to make a major announcement about Tegra family. It is highly possible that we will see some very interesting form-factors coming out at the same time. [There will be products] shown by our partners using the next-generation Tegra device. You are going to see roll-outs and deployments of tablet PCs, smartbooks, netbooks, MIDs throughout the first half [of the year]; and then you will see major roll-outs of smartphones in the second half" Michael Hara, senior vice president of investor relations and communications, NVIDIA

Those launches will then be followed by a stronger push into the smartphone segment, something NVIDIA have been tipping for Tegra since the original chip's announcement in mid-2008.  Since then, actual commercial deployment has been less than many predicted, with the Microsoft Zune HD being perhaps the biggest-name device to pack the Tegra chipset.

Full details regarding Tegra 2 are unknown, but it's expected to have roughly twice the power and graphical capabilities of the original and be based on 40nm processes.  The current-gen Tegra is already capable of 1080p HD video; Hara says NVIDIA's goal is the desktop internet and media experience in a portable device:

"You want to have fast response times and switching between your windows [on the desktop], you want to see high-definition videos, you want to see high-definition images, so, your experience is about HD Internet. Our objective with Tegra is to deliver the same experience to your handheld devices" Michael Hara

[via TechTicker]