Tegra


Tegra is a system on a chip series developed by Nvidia for mobile devices such as smartphones, personal digital assistants, and mobile Internet devices. The Tegra integrates an ARM architecture central processing unit, graphics processing unit, northbridge, southbridge, and memory controller onto one package. Early Tegra SoCs are designed as efficient multimedia processors, while more recent models emphasize performance for gaming and machine learning applications, without sacrificing power efficiency.

History

The Tegra APX 2500 was announced on February 12, 2008. The Tegra 6xx product line was revealed on June 2, 2008, and the APX 2600 was announced in February 2009. The APX chips were designed for smartphones, while the Tegra 600 and 650 chips were intended for smartbooks and mobile Internet devices.
The first product to use the Tegra was Microsoft's Zune HD media player in September 2009, followed by the Samsung M1. Microsoft's Kin was the first cellular phone to use the Tegra; however, the phone did not have an app store, so the Tegra's power did not provide much advantage. In September 2008, Nvidia and Opera Software announced that they would produce a version of the Opera 9.5 browser optimised for the Tegra on Windows Mobile and Windows CE. At Mobile World Congress 2009, Nvidia introduced its port of Google's Android to the Tegra.
On January 7, 2010, Nvidia officially announced and demonstrated its next generation Tegra system-on-a-chip, the Nvidia Tegra 250, at Consumer Electronics Show 2010. Nvidia primarily supports Android on Tegra 2, but booting other ARM-supporting operating systems is possible on devices where the bootloader is accessible. Tegra 2 support for the Ubuntu GNU/Linux distribution was also announced on the Nvidia developer forum.
Nvidia announced the first quad-core SoC at the February 2011 Mobile World Congress event in Barcelona. Though the chip was codenamed Kal-El, it is now branded as Tegra 3. Early benchmark results show impressive gains over Tegra 2, and the chip was used in many of the tablets released in the second half of 2011.
In January 2012, Nvidia announced that Audi had selected the Tegra 3 processor for its In-Vehicle Infotainment systems and digital instruments display. The processor will be integrated into Audi's entire line of vehicles worldwide, beginning in 2013. The process is ISO 26262-certified.
In summer of 2012 Tesla Motors began shipping the Model S all electric, high performance sedan, which contains two NVIDIA Tegra 3D Visual Computing Modules. One VCM powers the 17-inch touchscreen infotainment system, and one drives the 12.3-inch all digital instrument cluster."
In March 2015, Nvidia announced the Tegra X1, the first SoC to have a graphics performance of 1 teraflop. At the announcement event, Nvidia showed off Epic Games' Unreal Engine 4 "Elemental" demo, running on a Tegra X1.
On October 20, 2016, Nvidia announced that Nintendo's then upcoming Switch hybrid home/portable game console will be powered by Tegra hardware. On March 15, 2017, TechInsights revealed the Nintendo Switch is powered by a custom Tegra X1, with lower clockspeeds.

Specifications

Tegra APX

; Tegra APX 2500:
; Tegra APX 2600:
; Tegra 600:
; Tegra 650:
The second generation Tegra SoC has a dual-core ARM Cortex-A9 CPU, an ultra low power GeForce GPU, a 32-bit memory controller with either LPDDR2-600 or DDR2-667 memory, a 32KB/32KB L1 cache per core and a shared 1MB L2 cache. Tegra 2's Cortex A9 implementation does not include ARM's SIMD extension, NEON. There is a version of the Tegra 2 SoC supporting 3D displays; this SoC uses a higher clocked CPU and GPU.
The Tegra 2 video decoder is largely unchanged from the original Tegra and has limited support for HD formats. The lack of support for high-profile H.264 is particularly troublesome when using online video streaming services.
Common features:
ModelDevices
AP20HMotorola Atrix 4G, Motorola Droid X2, Motorola Photon, LG Optimus 2X / LG Optimus Dual P990 / Optimus 2x SU660, Samsung Galaxy R, Samsung Captivate Glide,
T-Mobile G2X P999, Acer Iconia Tab A200 and A500, LG Optimus Pad, Motorola Xoom, Sony Tablet S, Dell Streak Pro, Toshiba Thrive tablet, T-Mobile G-Slate
T20Avionic Design Tamonten Processor Board, Notion Ink Adam tablet, Olivetti OliPad 100, ViewSonic G Tablet, ASUS Eee Pad Transformer, Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1, Toshiba AC100, CompuLab Trim-Slice nettop, Velocity Micro Cruz Tablet L510, Acer Iconia Tab A100
AP25Fusion Garage Grid 10
Tesla Motors models 2013~2014 instrument cluster

Tegra 3

NVIDIA's Tegra 3 is functionally a SoC with a quad-core ARM Cortex-A9 MPCore CPU, but includes a fifth "companion" core in what Nvidia refers to as a "variable SMP architecture". While all cores are Cortex-A9s, the companion core is manufactured with a low-power silicon process. This core operates transparently to applications and is used to reduce power consumption when processing load is minimal. The main quad-core portion of the CPU powers off in these situations.
Tegra 3 is the first Tegra release to support ARM's SIMD extension, NEON.
The GPU in Tegra 3 is an evolution of the Tegra 2 GPU, with 4 additional pixel shader units and higher clock frequency. It can also output video up to 2560×1600 resolution and supports 1080p MPEG-4 AVC/h.264 40 Mbit/s High-Profile, VC1-AP, and simpler forms of MPEG-4 such as DivX and Xvid.
The Tegra 3 was released on November 9, 2011.
Common features:
ModelDevices
T30LAsus Transformer Pad TF300T, Microsoft Surface, Nexus 7, Sony Xperia Tablet S, Acer Iconia Tab A210, Toshiba AT300, BLU Quattro 4.5,
T30Asus Eee Pad Transformer Prime, IdeaTab K2 / LePad K2, Acer Iconia Tab A510, Fuhu Inc. nabi 2 Tablet, Tesla Motors models 2013~2014 center information display, Tesla Model S of 2015 instrument cluster, Microsoft Surface, Lenovo IdeaPad Yoga 11,
AP33LG Optimus 4X HD, HTC One X, XOLO Play T1000,
T33Asus Transformer Pad Infinity, Fujitsu ARROWS X F-02E, Ouya, HTC One X+

Tegra 4

The Tegra 4 was announced on January 6, 2013 and is a SoC with a quad-core CPU, but includes a fifth low-power Cortex A15 companion core which is invisible to the OS and performs background tasks to save power. This power-saving configuration is referred to as "variable SMP architecture" and operates like the similar configuration in Tegra 3.
The GeForce GPU in Tegra 4 is again an evolution of its predecessors. However, numerous feature additions and efficiency improvements were implemented. The number of processing resources was dramatically increased, and clock rate increased as well. In 3D tests, the Tegra 4 GPU is typically several times faster than that of Tegra 3. Additionally, the Tegra 4 video processor has full support for hardware decoding and encoding of WebM video.
Along with Tegra 4, Nvidia also introduced i500, an optional software modem based on Nvidia's acquisition of Icera, which can be reprogrammed to support new network standards. It supports category 3 LTE but will later be updated to Category 4.
Common features:
1 Pixel shaders : Vertex shaders : Pixel pipelines

Devices

ModelDevices
T114Nvidia Shield Portable, Tegra Note 7, Microsoft Surface 2, HP Slate 7 Extreme, HP Slate 7 Beats Special Edition, HP Slate 8 Pro, HP SlateBook x2, HP SlateBook 14, HP Slate 21, ZTE N988S, nabi Big Tab, Nuvola NP-1, Project Mojo, Asus Transformer Pad TF701T, Toshiba AT10-LE-A, Vizio 10" tablet, Wexler.Terra 7, Wexler.Terra 10, Acer TA272HUL AIO, Xiaomi Phone 3, Coolpad 大观 4, Audi Tablet, Le Pan TC1020 10.1", Matrimax iPLAY 7, Kobo Arc 10HD, Tesla Model S of 2015 center information display

Tegra 4i

The Tegra 4i was announced on February 19, 2013. With hardware support for the same audio and video formats, but using Cortex-A9 cores instead of Cortex-A15, the Tegra 4i is a low-power variant of the Tegra 4 and is designed for phones and tablets. Unlike its Tegra 4 counterpart, the Tegra 4i also integrates the Icera i500 LTE/HSPA+ baseband processor onto the same die.
Common features:
1 Pixel shaders : Vertex shaders : Pixel pipelines
Devices

Tegra K1

’s Tegra K1 features ARM Cortex-A15 cores in a 4+1 configuration similar to Tegra 4, or Nvidia's 64-bit Project Denver dual-core processor as well as a Kepler graphics processing unit with support for Direct3D 12, OpenGL ES 3.1, CUDA 6.5, OpenGL 4.4/OpenGL 4.5, and Vulkan. Nvidia claims that it outperforms both the Xbox 360 and the PS3, whilst consuming significantly less power.
Support Adaptive Scalable Texture Compression.
In late April 2014, Nvidia shipped the "Jetson TK1" development board containing a Tegra K1 SoC and running Ubuntu Linux.
1 Unified Shaders : Texture mapping units : Render output units
2 ARM Large Physical Page Extension supports 1 TiB. The 8 GiB limitation is part-specific.

Devices

ModelDevices
T124Jetson TK1 development board, Nvidia Shield Tablet, Acer Chromebook 13, HP Chromebook 14 G3, Xiaomi MiPad, Snail Games
OBox, UTStarcom MC8718, Google Project Tango tablet, Apalis TK1 System on Module, Fuze Tomahawk F1, JXD Singularity S192
T132HTC Nexus 9

In December 2015, the web page of wccftech.com published an article stating that Tesla is going to use a Tegra K1 based design derived from the template of the Nvidia Visual Computing Module for driving the infotainment systems and providing visual driving aid in the respective vehicle models of that time. This news has, as of now, found no similar successor or other clear confirmation later on in any other place on such a combination of a multimedia with an auto pilot system for these vehicle models.

Tegra X1

Nvidia's Tegra X1 features four ARM Cortex-A57 cores and four unused ARM Cortex-A53 cores, as well as a Maxwell-based graphics processing unit.
It supports Adaptive Scalable Texture Compression. Contrary to initial belief, Nvidia does not use the eight cores in ARM big.LITTLE configuration. Instead, devices utilizing the Tegra X1 always show themselves as having only four ARM Cortex-A57 cores available. The other four ARM Cortex-A53 cores cannot be accessed by the operating system, are unused in known devices, and have been removed by Nvidia from later versions of technical documentation, implying that a silicon erratum prevents their normal usage.
A revision with faster clock speeds, known officially as Tegra X1+ was released in 2019. It's also known as T214, Mariko and T210B01.
ModelDevices
T210Nvidia Shield Android TV, Nvidia Jetson TX1 development board, Nvidia Drive CX & PX, Google Pixel C, Nintendo Switch
T214Nvidia Shield Android TV, Nintendo Switch, Nintendo Switch Lite
TM660MJetson Nano

Tegra X2

Nvidia's Tegra X2 features Nvidia's own custom general-purpose ARMv8-compatible core Denver 2 as well as code-named Pascal graphics processing core with GPGPU support. The chips are made using FinFET process technology using TSMC's 16 nm FinFET+ manufacturing process.
ModelDevices
T186Nvidia Drive PX2,
ZF ProAI 1.1
Nvidia Jetson TX2
Mercedes-Benz MBUX
1 unit along with 1 GPU semiconductor is part of the ECU for "Tesla vision" functionality in all Tesla vehicles since October 2016
Magic Leap One
Skydio 2

Xavier

The most recent Tegra SoC, Xavier, named after the comic book character Professor X, was announced on 28 September 2016, and by March 2019, it had been released. It contains 7 billion transistors and 8 custom ARMv8 cores, a Volta GPU with 512 CUDA cores, an open sourced TPU called DLA It is able to encode and decode 8K Ultra HD. Users can configure operating modes at 10 W, 15 W, and 30 W TDP as needed and the die size is 350 mm2. Nvidia confirmed the fabrication process to be 12 nm FinFET at CES 2018.
ModelDevices
Nvidia Drive Xavier
Nvidia Drive Pegasus
Nvidia Drive AGX Xavier Developer Kit
Nvidia Jetson AGX Xavier Developer Kit
Nvidia Jetson Xavier
Nvidia Jetson Xavier NX
Nvidia Clara AGX "Clara AGX is based on NVIDIA Xavier and NVIDIA Turing GPUs."
Bosch and Nvidia designed Self Driving System
ZF ProAI

On the Linux Kernel Mailing List, a Tegra194 based development board with type ID "P2972-0000" got reported: The board consists of the P2888 compute module and the P2822 baseboard.

Orin

Nvidia announced the next-gen SoC codename Orin on March 27, 2018 at GPU Technology Conference 2018. The Drive AGX Orin family was announced on December 18, 2019 at GTC China 2019. It contains 17 billion transistors and 12 Arm Hercules cores and is capable of 200 INT8 TOPs @ 65W.
* VLIW-based Vec4: Pixel shaders + Vertex shaders. Since Kepler, Unified shaders are used.

Software support

Linux

Nvidia distributes proprietary device drivers for Tegra through OEMs and as part of its "Linux for Tegra" development kit. The newer and more powerful devices of the Tegra family are now supported by Nvidia's own Vibrante Linux distribution. Vibrante comes with a larger set of GNU/Linux tools plus several Nvidia provided libraries for acceleration in the area of data processing and especially image processing for driving safety and automated driving up to the level of deep learning and neuronal networks that make e.g. heavy use of the CUDA capable accelerator blocks, and via OpenCV can make use of the NEON vector extensions of the ARM cores.
, due to different "business needs" from that of their GeForce line of graphics cards, Nvidia and one of their Embedded Partners, Avionic Design GmbH from Germany, are also working on submitting open-source drivers for Tegra upstream to the mainline Linux kernel.
Nvidia co-founder & CEO laid out the Tegra processor roadmap using Ubuntu Unity in GPU Technology Conference 2013.
By end of 2018 its evident that Nvidia employees have contributed substantial code parts to make the T186 and T194 models run for HDMI display and audio with the upcoming official Linux kernel 4.21 in about Q1 2019. The thus positively affected software modules are the open source Nouveau and the closed source Nvidia graphics drivers along with the Nvidia proprietary CUDA interface.

QNX

The Drive PX2 board was announced with QNX RTOS support at the April 2016 GPU Technology Conference.

Similar platforms

SoCs and platforms with comparable specifications are: