NVIDIA got a slow start with the first Tegra circuit that didn’t get many designer invites, but the successor Tegra 2 is more of a success since it has reached the market with mixed reviews, but eventually sales took off. With the acquisition of Icera the company adds more competitive power to its SoC portfolio and the Tegra brand.
Icera is a company that develops baseband processors for wireless 2G, 3G and 4G protocols and in a recent press release NVIDIA announced its acquisition of the company for 367 million dollar. The deal was approved by the board of both companies and NVIDIA expects it to be finalized in the next 30 days.
Tegra 2 made with TSMC’s 40nm technology, future Tegra products come with an integrated baseband processor
It gains access to 550 patents for baseband processors and NVIDIA plans to integrate this technology into its SoC Tegra to be used in smartphones, tablets and other portable devices. For phone manufacturers this means less chips to fit on a PCB, which reduce development costs and time between products.
Baseband processors costs quite a lot today, which brings bigger margins to NVIDIA and its Tegra chips or be able to sell a cheaper complete solution to companies, unlike the current selection. According to VP Jen-Hsun Huang, Icera fits perfectly with NVIDIA. Exactly when we get to see the integration of a baseband processor in NVIDIA Tegra we don’t know, but considering Tegra 3 is on the way to market already, we wouldn’t expect it until Tegra 4.
