NVIDIA Want Tegra 2 To Be Performance Android Option; Challenge Snapdragon & Apple A4

NVIDIA are looking to take on Qualcomm in the Android arena, with CEO Jen-Hsun Huang positioning the company's second-gen Tegra chipset as a more multimedia- and performance-focused alternative for high-end devices.  Huang complimented Qualcomm and TI's mobile chipsets, describing them as "wonderful application processors", but went on to say that "our differentiation and our contribution to the space is where multimedia, high resolution snappy graphics [are] really necessary."  He also highlighted Tegra's possibilities for larger-scale, iPad rivalling Android tablets, such as Notion Ink's Adam.

"With iPad and next-generation smartphones, resolution's a huge issue, and you need to have very snappy graphics with a 10x7 display, if not even bigger by that, even higher resolution than that. You're just not going to do that with a application processor that's not designed for that. And so that's our contribution and that's our differentiation and that's what people are seeking out in the market." Jen-Hsun Huang, CEO, NVIDIA

NVIDIA will be looking to pair their second-gen Tegra with the third generation of Android, with initial devices beginning production in the second half of 2010.  Huang also named Apple's A4 SoC – which is found in the iPad and believed to be powering the fourth-gen iPhone HD – as a key competitor.

Meanwhile, he also commented on Fermi and responded to investor and analyst suggestions that NVIDIA's roll-out of graphics cards based on the new GPUs had been disappointing.  "The amount of testing that we have to do for Fermi GPUs [is] longer than mainstream products," Huang explained, "because they're just much, much larger GPUs. The Fermi GPU, as you know, is some 3 billion transistors, and so there's a lot of testing to do in it." Seeking Alpha have a full transcript of the call here.

[via ARMDevices]