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Texas Instruments has a new OMAP chip to set upon the world, and this time around it's eyeing more than mobile phones.

The new OMAP3440 made its debut in Barcelona at Mobile World Congress 2008. This is the latest in TI's line of OMAP applications processors, which are the equivalent of the CPUs inside PCs.

TI sells standalone applications processors like the 3440 to customers such as Nokia for use in high-end smartphones, but it is also talking up the potential for the 3440 as a chip for Mobile Internet Devices (MIDs). That's Intel's name for an evolving class of handheld computer that's a bit more powerful than a smartphone but smaller and longer running than a notebook.

TI isn't willing to give Intel any ground when it comes to portable handheld devices. Intel has already tried to gain ground against chipmakers like TI, Samsung Electronics, and Freescale Semiconductor with its XScale program. The XScale chip did fairly well as a standalone applications processor, but attempts by Intel to also get into the cellular modem business flopped, and the company offloaded the division in 2006 to Marvell Technology Group.

The new chip, like the Nvidia APX 2500 also unveiled Monday, can record and playback 720p high-definition video. It uses ARM's Cortex A8 core running at 800MHz and can be used with any modem. TI hopes to have samples out for customers to start testing in phone and MID designs by the end of the second quarter.

Nvidia wants a piece of the exploding smartphone market, with its first major applications processor scheduled to arrive in phones next year.

The graphics chip company is showing off the fruits of its $357 million PortalPlayer acquisition with the APX 2500, its first attempt at building a true computing processor for mobile phones, said Mike Rayfield, general manager of Nvidia's mobile business unit. The APX 2500 is designed as a standalone application processor for multimedia phones where talking takes a back seat to watching videos and browsing the Web.

Nvidia's APX 2500 chip, it's first major applications processor for smart phones.

(Credit: Nvidia)

The applications processor in a mobile phone is akin to the Intel or Advanced Micro Devices CPU in a PC. Once a fairly basic part, these chips are getting more and more complex as mobile phones evolve from simple call-and-text devices to small handheld computers.

Right now, the market is dominated by companies like Texas Instruments, Samsung, Freescale Semiconductor, and Marvell, which will make it hard for Nvidia to break into this area. Unlike a PC, most people have no idea what kind of chip is in their mobile phone, so any brand recognition Nvidia might have with consumers really doesn't matter when it comes to making a decision about a phone.

But the company thinks it has two major selling points to push before handset makers and carriers: it knows how to make chips that process video and graphics, and it is throwing its hat in with Microsoft's Windows Mobile development path, Rayfield said.

The 300 or so engineers that came to Nvidia from PortalPlayer had developed a chip that could power music players like SanDisk's Sansa View, but that wasn't really suitable for mobile phones and navigation devices. Nvidia added another 300 engineers of its own to the project after the acquisition closed, and came up with the APX 2500.

The chip is based on the ARM11 core, and can run at up to 750MHz. It can encode and decode 720p high-definition video, meaning you could use a phone based on the APX 2500 as both a high-definition player and camcorder. Nvidia also added some of its GeForce graphics technology that was designed for low-power devices, which allows 3D user interfaces to run on the chip, Rayfield said.

Nvidia is pushing the APX 2500 as the fastest way for handset makers to build a smartphone based on Windows Mobile. Right now, Windows Mobile appeals more to corporate smartphone users, but according to Rayfield, Microsoft is planning to make the next version of the operating system much more consumer-friendly. Nvidia designed its chip in collaboration with Microsoft, and the next version of the operating system will be able to exploit technology within Nvidia's chip, he said.

Still, this approach limits Nvidia's early prospects, as it blocks out both Symbian, the dominant smartphone operating system, and Linux, perhaps the most promising future operating system. Nvidia is a member of Google's Open Handset Alliance, but it's taking a "wait-and-see" attitude toward Android, Rayfield said.

Nvidia has some customers lined up for the APX 2500, but it's not saying who's on board. The company is playing up the mobile phone prospects for the chip, being that it's the week of MWC, but it will also try to sell the chip to companies that make portable navigation systems and personal media players.

Rayfield and his team have their work cut out for them, trying to crack a market like this where they have little to no experience. It's still early days in the smartphone market, but it does seem like there is room for a host of players right now, unlike the PC market's early consolidation around Intel and grudging acceptance of AMD as a second source.

ARM plans to demonstrate prototype phones based on ARM processors and Google's Android operating system next week, possibly paving the way for the chip designer to join Google's Open Handset Alliance.

It won't be the first Android prototype to get a public airing, but this one will come on one of the biggest stages of the year for the mobile-phone industry. An ARM representative distributed invitations Wednesday to come see and play with the Android prototypes next week in Barcelona at the Mobile World Congress.

ARM's technology is found at the heart of almost every mobile phone on the planet. The company designs the processor cores that companies like Texas Instruments, Samsung, and Marvell manufacture into chips that run cell phones and smartphones. But ARM was a curious omission from the initial list of companies that agreed to join Google's Open Handset Alliance when it was announced in November along with the Android software.

Android is based on a Linux kernel that already supports ARM-based processors. Software development for the ARM world, however, can be tricky, which is why ARM has close relationships with all the other mobile-software vendors in the world. Different handset makers utilize ARM's cores in different ways, which makes it a challenge to create software that works consistently across phones from multiple vendors.

When it comes to Google, however, ARM has been taking a wait-and-see approach so far. In some ways, that makes sense as Android is not exactly a finished product. But the promise of Android is something that has to interest ARM: if Google can galvanize the Linux community around its product and deliver a compelling user experience for handset makers and carriers, that just might boost sales of mobile phones using ARM's chips.

And coming off a worse-than-expected fourth quarter, ARM's probably looking for some positive momentum. The ARM representative declined to comment on whether the scheduled demonstrations meant the company would be joining the Open Handset Alliance, but ARM is clearly stepping up its public support for Android before phones using the software arrive later this year.