NVIDIA reveals first ARM-based 64-bit chipset for Android in new Tegra K1 revision, building it with Android L in mind
We’ve all heard about the greatness of NVIDIA’s Tegra K1 and its 192-core Kepler GPU, and now things are about to get even better. NVIDIA has revealed the world’s first ARM-based 64-bit chipset for Android. This new Kepler-based chipset still sits within the Tegra K1 family, except it features a dual-core “Project Denver” application processor with 64-bit ARMv8 instruction sets. It shares the same 192-core GeForce GPU as the quad-core Tegra K1, natch, which is said to be the cream of the crop of mobile GPUs.
The new Denver silicon features a 7-way superscalar compared to the original K1’s 3-way configuration, and also performs at clock speeds up to 2.5GHz. It also features improved L1 cache, with a 128KB + 64KB setup compared to 32K + 32K on the original. It also features a pin connection identical to the original Tegra K1, so manufacturers can get it onto existing high-yield motherboards without any issue.
Despite its dual-core architecture, Project Denver is said to provide performance that’s even faster than some of today’s quad-core and octa-core chipsets thanks to the optimizations and improvements NVIDIA has made to the core technology. We’re not sure how accurate those claims are without benchmarks, but we’ve never had any good reason to doubt NVIDIA’s advertised performance.
What’s more is that NVIDIA says they’re developing for Android L on the new 64-bit chip, so it sounds like full support could be ready to go in production devices by the time the final release of the latest version of Android makes its way to the forefront. Exciting times in Santa Clara indeed — let’s just hope we’ll be able to see these things in more than a few devices in the next year to come.
[via NVIDIA]