Unstoppable forward with NVIDIA Tegra 2 3D

NVIDIA (Nasdaq: NVDA) reportedly will ship a 3D Tegra 2 processor, to be used in mobile devices, this year.

A slide from planned presentation Nvidia at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain, in February, shows the 3D 2 Tegra, according to TechEye, blog that broke the news.

The slide mentions also reported the Tegra 3, which is a quad-core processor.

"I cannot provide specific information about future products, because we don't comment on rumors or unannounced products," Ken Brown, a spokesman for Nvidia, told TechNewsWorld.

However, he did give credibility rumors on a possible 3D version of the Tegra.

"We're really excited about bringing 3D capabilities of Tegra," said Brown.

3D 2 Tegra reported will be based on an arm (Nasdaq: ARMHY) Dual Cortex A9 processor, clocked at up to 1.2 GHz and you will be able to manage 5,493 MIPS, or millions of instructions per second.

These statistics do not differ much from those of the Tegra 2, which is already in production.

Tegra 2 has a dual core ARM Cortex A9 CPU. It also includes a low power processor, an Nvidia GeForce graphics processor, 1080p video playback, video processor, 1080p encode an image signal processor, an audio processor and ARM7 processors.

NVIDIA demoed reported five loaves Tegra 2-based at the Consumer Electronics Show held in Las Vegas in January. Had da NotionInk, ICD, Compal, Foxconn and MSI.

NVIDIA reportedly will start to produce the 3D Tegra 2 in the first quarter.

3D-devices-including Smartphones, notebooks, mobile Internet devices and portable players--including more than 11 percent of the total market of mobile devices by 2015, according to ABI Research.

Unlike the 3D TVs, the mobile category has a rapid replacement cycle, said Victoria Fodale, senior analyst with ABI, mobile devices. This means that consumers are more likely to upgrade to a mobile device with 3D, and are likely to do it sooner than you would upgrade to a 3D TV.

There are two specific use cases for 3D on mobile devices depending on the form factor and hardware specifications, Fodale told TechNewsWorld.

One of these is the game--not just on Smartphones with larger screens, but also collapsed as well. The second is playing 3D content, like movies on mobile devices.

"At CES, I've seen demonstrations of animated films as" shrek "on mobile devices, and they looked really, really good," Fodale, he said. "I was skeptical, but I was convinced."

Generations of 3D content will be enabled by the ability of still and video cameras to capture 3D images, said Fodale.

That will require some additional hardware, such as multiple processors, as well as improvements in the software to render, he added.

The GeForce graphics processing unit of low power Tegra already has advanced 2D and 3D rendering, Nvidia Brown stressed. Further, Tegra already supports used by leading game engines and for designing 3D user interfaces, 3D rendering.

The same slide that shows the 3D 2 Tegra apparently also shows the 3 Tegra. Will reportedly have a quad-core processor 1.5 GHz and more than two times faster than line 2 Tegra.

It will have a very low power processor, and there will be two versions--one for a smartphone--and one for a tablet, if the information disclosed is accurate.

You probably won't see 3D mobile devices until the end of this year, ABI Fodale speculated.

That's why the technology that you think will probably fit the Bill will not be available until then.

"There's a number of different technologies that provide 3D functionality, and what I find most applicable is the Parallax barrier technology," said Fodale.

A parallax barrier consists of a layer of material with a series of slots that allow you to see a different set of pixels, so that the viewer Gets a 3D image without the need to wear 3D glasses each eye. The problem with this technology is that you must sit at exactly the right place to experience the 3D effect. In addition, the slits are vertical, which is problematic given the swivel and tilt functionality offered by mobile devices.

However, a new version of this technology using cellular blinds instead of vertical stripes, which means that users can rotate the screen and don't miss the 3D image, said Fodale.

"I spoke with the company to drive this approach at CES," he added, "and they said that we're going to see these things happen towards the end of 2011."

View the original article here