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I can pretty much count on one hand the number of big name devices that are already shipping with NVIDIA Tegra 2 chips, but if CES 2011 was anything to go buy, the market will be flooded by Tegra 2-powered tablets and phones in the coming months. But NVIDIA isn’t stopping to relish the news. The company has already said it plans to launch a new Tegra chip this year… and another new one the year after that.

Now in an interview with Hexus, NVIDIA general manager Mike Rayfield is hinting that Tegra 3 could be announced soon. He says the chip will “be in production around the same time” as other companies are producing dual core chips based on ARM architecture. Since Qualcomm, Freescale, and Texas Instruments are all expected to begin production of dual core chips pretty soon, it seems likely that Tegra 3 will come in the next few months, and Hexus predicts a launch at the Mobile World Congress event in February.

NVIDIA isn’t spelling out what kind of features Tegra 3 chips will have, but based on Rayfields’ comments, it seems likely that it could be a triple or quad-core chip. Or maybe he’s just gloating because he expects to have a second-generation dual core chip while competitors are launching their first products in the space.

NVIDIA hopes to launch a new Tegra chip every year. But it’s worth keeping in mind that a February launch for Tegra 3 doesn’t mean we’ll start seeing Tegra 3 devices anytime soon. NVIDIA Tegra 2 was introduced well over a year ago, but it’s taken a while for manufacturers to start designing tablets and phones around the chip.