Nvidia Tegra 2 hailed as Honeycomb CPU of choice

Google OS tablet reference design?

Samsung's Galaxy Tab 2 will run on Nvidia's Tegra 2.

So says Citigroup analyst Glen Yeung, by way of Barron's, who last week told investors that Samsung has “placed a sizeable order with Nvidia for Tegra 2 chips in the first half of 2011, geared for both tablets and smartphones”.

Yeung went on to claim that the Nvidia ARM-based system on a chip - which was launched at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) almost a year ago - forms the basis for the reference platform Google is testing Honeycomb - aka Android 3.0 - against. Honeycomb is expected to bring tablet-specific support to the Google OS.

Right now, Honeycomb isn't expected to debut until late Q1 2011. Whenever Honeycomb debuts, it puts Nvidia in a strong position to supply all the vendors awaiting Honeycomb in order to release their own tablet offerings.

That's probably why Ambrish Srivastava, a chips analyst with BMO Capital Markets, said last week that he expects Nvidia to power a number of tablets in 2011, according to a report by Forbes.

"Nvidia is clearly emerging as one of the top design wins,” he told investors after a trip to Asia's technology centres. ®