NVIDIA is launching two new chips today. The first is the NVIDIA i500 LTE modem which is the company’s first 4G LTE modem. But the second is a complete mobile processor with built-in support for 4G LTE mobile broadband.

That chip is called the NVIDIA Tegra 4i, and it’s a smartphone processor that offers a little less performance than the upcoming Tegra 4 chip for tablets and “superphones.”

NVIDIA Tegra 4i

The Tegra 4i features a quad-core ARM Cortex-A9 CPU and a lower power fifth battery saver core. It also has 60 NVIDIA graphics cores, and support for GSM, WCDMA, HSPA+, LTE, and other mobile networks.

In other words, the Tegra 4i isn’t as powerful as the full-fledged Tegra 4 chip. That processor has 4 ARM Cortex-A15 cores and 72 graphics cores. But both chips do feature the same built-in support for HDR (high dynamic range) photography.

NVIDIA’s Tegra 4i can run at clock speeds up to 2.3 GHz and supports up to 2GB of RAM and 1080p encoding and decoding. The company has put out a reference design for a Tegra smartphone calling for a 5 inch, 1080p display, an 8mm thick case, and LTE support, among other things. It’s called the Phoenix Reference Phone Platform.

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7 replies on “NVIDIA introduces Tegra 4i smartphone chip (Tegra 4-lite)”

  1. Tegra 4i should have improved much over T3. ARM-A9-R4, maybe close to Krait. Hope they got the dual channel memory interface this time around. that was a huge bottleneck.

    but overal, not counting benchmarks, Tegra3 games, had much better visuals than compared to the competition.

  2. I’m sure someone will find something to complain about.

    I honestly don’t understand the Tegra hate, as all the Tegra stuff I’ve owned has been great performing with no real problems.

  3. Nvidia is stupid for mixing up their Tegra 3 & 4 chips, this new chip should be a Tegra 3i it’s not like ARM chip versions weren’t complicated enough already

  4. Anyone else noticed that nVidia has a long history of way overpromising and then failing to meet key specifications for their products? Take that 2.3ghz figure… I bet they can hit it, but only on certain bins, and only under ideal circumstances that should never occur in any phone or even most tablets. I’d be shocked if this thing gets into many phones with specs that meet what that slide is promising.

    T3 didn’t really meet it’s billing either until what… 3 respins was it?

  5. Superphones? That is the first tie I have heard that phone and questioned it… I must be hopelessness out of date. Superphones better be HAL 9000 in my hand, because otherwise I will be disappointed.

    1. Egad!!! Superphones has been a term for over a year! What is going wrong with the world. Until my smartphone has the power of an ultra-book with the equivalent of an i7 CPU I just don’t see a demarcation point.

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