NVDA gets iPad 3?

[Ailuros]

Originally Posted by kalelovil

Do you have a source for that? The PowerVR SGX543MP2 takes up a relatively large amount of space and presumably power consumption.
According to Anandtech http://www.anandtech.com/show/4840/k...companion-core :
"We also learned that NVIDIA was targeting somewhere around an 80mm^2 die, more than 60% bigger than Tegra 2 but over 30% smaller than the A5 in Apple's iPad 2."

The 543MP2 GPU block with all bells and whistles takes up roughly 1/4th of the A5 die estate, give or take as the two A9 CPU cores in A5.

The Tegra3 SoC should be in total around 80mm2 (vs. >120mm2 for the A5) yet the two are not directly comparable because NVIDIA uses 40G@TSMC and Apple Samsung's 45nm.

Within Apple's exclusive realm A5 consumes roughly as much power consumption with a comparable battery life compared to Apple A4 at N% higher performance.

I don't see Apple going with Tegra 3 since the Tegra 3 gpu will most likely be weaker than the 543MP2.

For Tegra3 we most likely will see tablets being announced based on tablet T30 within this year and AP30/smart-phone T3 after Q1 2012. AP30 will be most likely be either dual or quad A9 depending on OEMs' needs.

I realise there are countless of funky rumors surrounding "iPad3", amongst other reasons because of Apple being notorious to be highly secretive about future hw. In any case Apple has been collecting SoC inventory for quite some time now and for iPad3 it sounds more like a die shrink at higher frequencies of the A5. Of course would many IHVs have or gain a deal with Apple due to their high volumes, but those that would want NV winning any such deal anytime soon should be prepared for unpleasant surprises and that not only for the coming generation of hw but far down the future.

[JAE]

Originally Posted by Ailuros

I realise there are countless of funky rumors surrounding "iPad3", amongst other reasons because of Apple being notorious to be highly secretive about future hw.

How secretive can they possibly be when they repeatedly let their employees bring prototypes to bars and then subsequently lose them?

[Ailuros]

Originally Posted by JAE

How secretive can they possibly be when they repeatedly let their employees bring prototypes to bars and then subsequently lose them?

For Tegra3 there was several months before its launch a performance increase estimate compared to T2 and Anand had even detailed slides about some of T3's advancements. Heck even die area and manufacturing process was known besides all other things. Now show me where I can find anything official from Apple considering its next SoC; more like zero, zilk, nada.

15th February 2011: http://www.anandtech.com/show/4181/n...lets-this-year

No devices available even today.