Even though Nvidia Corp.'s third-generation Tegra "Kal El" is still months away, the first details about the fourth-generation Tegra code-named Wayne have already started to emerge. Apparently, the new system-on-chip aimed at tablets, smartbooks and similar devices, will feature up to eight ARM cores in addition to DirectX 11 capabilities.

There will be at least two versions of Wayne system-on-chip devices: one with up to eight ARM Cortex-A15 cores and up to 64 stream processors, another with up to four ARM Cortex-A15 cores and up to 24 stream processors, reports Bright Side of News web-site. The new SoCs will be made using 28nm process technology and will be released commercially sometimes in 2012, in time for Windows 8 launch, which will support ARM architecture.

At present there are not a lot of details available about Tegra T40-series known as Wayne. Since Nvidia does not know exact power consumption of the forthcoming system-on-chip devices, the company will adjust performance (clock-speeds, the amount of execution units, etc.) of the chips after tape-out in late 2011.

Nvidia's ultimate goal is to increase performance of Tegra 2 by ten times with Wayne and also ensure that developers start using technologies like OpenCL as well as GPGPU on the ultra-mobile devices.

The Santa Clara, California-based designer of multimedia chips hopes that its ARM-based SoCs will eventually compete not only against their direct rivals from Texas Instruments, Qualcomm and others, but also against x86-based solutions from Advanced Micro Devices and Intel Corp.

Nvidia did not comment on the news-story.

Tags: Nvidia, Tegra, Wayne, Stark, Kal-El, Logan, 28nm, Cortex