NVIDIA Maxwell: GPU & ARM CPU in 2013

Last year, NVIDIA told the world about its upcoming GPUs in 2011 and 2013. These GPUs are codenamed Kepler and Maxwell, respectively. Kepler will be released sometime in 2011, and will be manufactured on a 28nm process. Kepler would be approximately 2.7 times faster than the Fermi C2070.

The follow-on GPU to Kepler will be the Maxwell. Maxwell will be released sometime in 2013, and will be manufactured on a 22nm process. Maxwell is approximately 7.6 times faster than the Fermi C2070.

NVIDIA has also told us about Project Denver, which combines a GPU and an ARM CPU in one. The question is, when will that be available? Will it be on Kepler, or will it be on Maxwell? Hexus.net has provided the answer in an interview with NVIDIA’s Tegra General Manager, Mike Rayfield .

Lastly we asked about Project Denver: the surprising announcement that NVIDIA will be designing a CPU in partnership with ARM, with a view to using it in high-end computers. We asked Rayfield to elaborate.

“As well as licensing Cortex A15, we also have an architectural license with ARM to produce an extremely high performance ARM CPU, which be combined with NVIDA GPUs for super-computing,” he said. When we asked for timescales, Rayfield revealed: “The Maxwell generation will be the first end-product using Project Denver. This is a far greater resource investment for us than just licensing a design.”

Hexus also speculates that NVIDIA may launch Tegra 3 at Mobile World Congress next month. Tegra is, of course, a system-on-a-chip developed for mobile devices such as smartphones

via : Exclusive: NVIDIA’s Tegra 3 primed for MWC launch @ Hexus.net

This story written by Paul Adams

Paul Adams leads an award-winning, diverse contractor team that runs a federal high performance computing facility where he has worked for 17 years. He loves getting his hands on the latest visualization and computer hardware, astronomy, aerospace engineering, working with the poor, and ringing cowbells.