In an interview with Forbes, NVIDIA’s CEO and president Jen-Hsun Huang confirmed rumors that Nvidia’s much hyped quad-core “Kal-El” Tegra 3 processor would indeed be running in tablets before the end of the year. Just like in the dual-core race, this will once again allow Nvidia to claim “firsties,” making them first on the market with a quad-core chipset. This should keep them ahead of rivals like Qualcomm who isn’t expected to deliver a similar quad-core processor until late this year or early next.

If you were one of those not swayed by current generation dual-core smartphones and waiting patiently for a quad-core this year, you may want to reconsider. Originally, Nvidia predicted they would have a quad-core phone in 2011 but Huang indicated there were only quad-core tablets in the works for this year. Sorry, guys. Who’s ready for a quad-core, Ice Cream Sandwich tablet!?

[Via BGR]