Amazon Tablet to Feature Nvidia's Kal-El Chip: Analyst

Online retailer Amazon is expected to make a jump in the tablet market as it is likely to unveil its Kindle tablet in a press conference to be held in New York on Sept. 28.

Much is rumored about the features of the new Amazon tablet, which would reportedly be named as Kindle Fire. Though it is unclear whether Amazon will release a 7-inch or a 10-inch model, speculations are rife that both are coming.

A Wall Street analyst has said that the Amazon's tablet will be powered by Nvidia's Kal-El chips.

Our expectation is that the Amazon tablet will use Nvidia's forthcoming Kal-El quad core chipset and we believe Amazon could be the marquee customer that Nvidia has hinted would be in the market for back-to-school, suggesting a potential product launch in late Q3, Wedge analyst Brian Blair wrote in a note to clients.

Nvidia recently said that its next-generation Kal-El Tegra chip, built under Variable Symmetric Multiprocessing architecture, would have five rather than four cores, as announced in February.

Nvidia calls this fifth core as companion core that runs at a lower frequency and operates at exceptionally low power, thereby increasing the battery life of mobile computing devices such as smartphones and tablets.

The fifth core is used primarily when the mobile device is in active standby and performing background tasks such as e-mail syncs, Twitter and Facebook updates, etc. It is also used for applications that do not need significant CPU processing power, such as streaming audio, offline audio and both online or offline video playback.

Meanwhile, analyst Blair says another possibility is that Amazon will offer multiple devices using Tegra 2 in one and Kal-El in another, which may be likely. However, he thinks a performance leap with Kal-El and a single device may be a more powerful way to enter the market.