Quad-core smartphones to ship this quarter says NVIDIA's CEO

It is no surprise that quad-core powered smartphones are going to be on display in a few weeks at MWC 2012 in Barcelona. What might be a surprise is that some of these devices will be ready to get shipped no later than a month after the show ends, at least according to NVIDIA. The chip manufacturer's CEO, said on Wednesday that smartphones powered by Quad-core Tegra 3 processors will be shipped sometime this quarter, which ends when March does.

Huang was speaking during the company's latest conference call following its earnings report. The company reported Q4 profit down 32% from last year due to a shortage of disk drives. While that still beat expectations from Wall Street, NVIDIA also said that Tegra shippments, which rose 50% sequentially in the fourth quarter, will drop 4% from that figure in the company's first quarter. But that is only news for investors. Smartphone fanatics would be more interested in what Huang said during the conference call. "This quarter we are expecting to ship Tegra 3 based superphones," Huang said. "At Mobile World Congress is when we expect to announce these devices, and we expect to announce and ship them this quarter. "HTC is expected to show off its Quad-core, Tegra 3 powered HTC Endeavor at an event on February 26th, the day before the start of MWC.

In other news that could change the thickness of  future smartphones, NVIDIA said that its  3G/4G LTE SOC will be arriving later this year. By combining what traditionally has been separate 3G and LTE chips, NVIDIA could allow manufacturers to design thinner and lighter smartphones.

source: TheVerge via AndroidGuys