NVIDIA Intros Phoenix Reference Smartphone with LTE-Enabled Chip Tegra 4i ~ The World is Mine

Feb 19, 2013

NVIDIA Intros Phoenix Reference Smartphone with LTE-Enabled Chip Tegra 4i

2/19/2013 09:49:00 PM

dannzfay

Today, chip maker NVIDIA officially introduced its Tegra 4i System on a Chip for smartphones and tablet PCs, the first chipset in the series to arrive on shelves with integrated LTE connectivity.

Previously known as Grey, the chipset was announced for the first time last year, but was confirmed to arrive this quarter only several days ago. Featuring a 2.3 GHz quad-core CPU inside and the NVIDIA i500 LTE modem, the new SoC should be able to provide users with all the capabilities they need inside a smartphone. “NVIDIA is delivering for the first time a single, integrated processor that powers all the major functions of a smartphone,” said Phil Carmack, senior vice president of the Mobile business at NVIDIA. “Tegra 4i phones will provide amazing computing power, world-class phone capabilities, and exceptionally long battery life.”

The new chipset arrives in devices with support for full 1080p HD displays, while promising a great experience for gaming and visually-demanding applications. It will also deliver an enhanced 4G LTE experience, NVIDIA announced. The company also unveiled a reference smartphone platform for the Tegra 4i processor, called Phoenix, and meant at providing a glimpse at the unique capabilities of the chip. Phoenix comes as a blueprint available for phone makers interested in designing and building smartphones that feature the new Tegra 4i CPU inside. “NVIDIA’s Tegra 4i appears to outperform the leading integrated LTE chip significantly, and also benefits from an integrated ‘soft-modem’ that can be re-programmed over-the-air to support new frequencies and air interfaces – something other modem vendors can only dream of,” said Stuart Robinson, director, Handset Component Technologies Program at Strategy Analytics.

NVIDIA also unveiled that it would bring the new mobile processor to the 2013 Mobile Congress in Barcelona, Spain, to further showcase its capabilities.