NVIDIA Tegra 3 Technology

Tablets and Android smartphone such as Acer, LG, Motorola, and Samsung, many of them using NVIDIA Tegra2. NVIDIA Tegra3 (Project Kal-El), the first quad-core processor for the tablet and smartphone in the world. This unique processor is actually using 5 cores: 4 high-performance cores and 1 power-efficient core.

Why Quad Core?

Nowadays, you can find dual-core processors inside almost every smartphones and Android tablet. NVIDIA is one of the manufacture who initiate it. However, along with the increasing application of modern and even high-definition 3D gaming, multitasking capability becomes very important and increasing the number of cores to solve these problems becomes more relevant. Imagine running Facebook, Twitter, IM, MSN Messenger, and several other applications in the background while playing 3D games. Yes, users of smartphones and Android tablet had been treating their devices as its a PC or notebook.

Power Saving Issues

When using 1 GHz processor for smartphones and tablets, especially after the dual-core processors being introduced, saving power begin to be a unique problem. Manufacturers face the dilemma with two options:

1. processors designed to save power,
2. processors designed for high performance.

Processors designed to save power is able to work with low voltage (automatic low power) at low speed. The problem, when this type of processor increasing their speed, processor voltage must be raised high enough. Forcing this kind of processor to work at speeds above 1 GHz will make it very wasteful, and even their performance was not very good.

Processors designed for high performance will have a very good efficiency at high speeds. These processors require high voltage to work at high speed (above 1 GHz). The problem is, lowering the processor speed of this type doesn't make it more power efficient.

It's hard to find a solution between the two types of processors above, at least for now. So, the manufacturer have to make a sacrifice: performance or power efficient. Another option is to sacrifice a little from both sides. However, that means we cannot obtain maximum high performance with minimum power consumption devices.

NVIDIA Solution: Why Choose? Simply Use Both Processors

NVIDIA fix the problem with 4 cores and 1 companion core.

Inside Tegra3 there are 4 cores designed for high performance and 1 core that is designed to save power. This technology is called vSMP (Variable Symmetric Multiprocessing). The 5th core is referred to as "companion core" this is the core that works at low speed. While the core 1-4 is core at high speed. These five cores based on ARM Cortex A9 that already famous for high performance.

Interestingly, Tegra3 did not "tell" about the existence of the fifth core to OS. So, the Android OS will detect the processor as a quad-core CPU. When high-performance work no longer needed, Tegra3 internal system will manage the make transition from using only 1 high speed core to companion cores. This makes companion core work more effective.

When using 1 cores for light work, only the companion cores that work (up to 500 MHz), while the other cores are turned off. For heavier work, cores will switch to the first cores performance. If it only takes 1 cores, 1.4 GHz speed can be achieved without having to turn on the other three cores. When more than 1 cores performance work, every cores speed will be limited to 1.3 GHz.

The results of this unique combination are high performance with low power consumption, as seen above from the test results Coremark Performance compared to power consumption.

Meanwhile, when compared to the NVIDIA Tegra2, turns out the power consumption of Tegra3 could reach 60% lower! Something that was unimaginable when we see that Tegra3 is a 4 cores CPU while Tegra2 is a 2 cores CPU.

Performance (NVIDIA Testing Results)

Let's look further performance offered by the NVIDIA Tegra3 this. Benchmark results that we presented are what we received from NVIDIA.

This is a test with 3D Photaf Panorama. In testing, the device must combine several pictures into one.

CoreMark is a common benchmark package. Here we see that Tegra3 (Kal-El) surpassed all the fastest processor available today.

In a test photo and video stitching transcoding, NVIDIA also claims to be able to obtain 2x higher performance.

Java Script and Flash is a test that describes the browsing experience. NVIDIA claims 4x faster performance.

Gaming with the Tegra2 already fast. It turns out Tegra3 offers much higher performance.

Connectivity to Game Controller and 3D Gaming

Tegra3 is designed complete with connectivity to some of game controller. Currently, the controller of PS3, XBOX 360, Wii, Logitech, and some other controller was able to used to control games on devices that use Tegra3. You can also connect the HDMI connector to TV screen and you will get a unique mobile gaming platform. In addition, NVIDIA also ensure that the game in the Tegra Zone (www.tegrazone.com) are also able to use all game controller that mentioned above.

When playing 3D games are not enough, NVIDIA has also set up some of games to be played in stereoscopic 3D (using the 3D monitor and 3D glasses). Connect your 3D monitor with HDMI 1.4 to Tegra3 devices and play the games.

Other Improvements

Supported with DDR3L-1500, LPDDR2-1066, make the Tegra3 is able to have a much greater bandwidth without having to make the total price of the system to be expensive. If you want a good audio system, Tegra3 also supports HD audio sound to 7.1 channel surround. Meanwhile, for storage connectivity, Tegra3 also supports e.MMC 4:41, SD3.0, and even SATA-II.