NVIDIA sees weak demand for Tegra 4 SoC

DigiTimes heard NVIDIA is having a hart time selling its Tegra 4 SoC. The site heard that so far, Toshiba is the only one to adopt the Tegra 4 for tablets to be launched in June 2013. The news implies NVIDIA is struggling to compete with the quad-core platforms designed by Qualcomm, Mediatek and China-based IC design houses.

In an effort to turn the tide around, NVIDIA is considering to cut pricing of its Tegra 3 SoC to attract entry-level orders from brand vendors, but DigiTimes' sources believe that a price cut will fail to make Tegra 3 more competitive in terms of price.

Asustek Computer and Acer, which have been aggressive about the tablet market, have not yet decided whether to place orders for Tegra 4 as their focuses have already turned from 10-inch and above tablets to the 7-inch entry-level segment.

As for Asustek's smartphone product line, the company's close partnership with Qualcomm is likely to prompt the two firms to continue smartphone cooperation in the future, leaving Tegra 4 to become just a backup solution, the sources noted.