Speaking of mobile GPU's, Nvidia's Tegra 3 has been confirmed for both Google's Nexus 7 tablet AND Microsoft's Surface RT tablet. After a slow start, Nvidia is starting to get Tegra 3 in to some items that have very large selling potential. If Amazon's rumored 10" tablet also sports a Tegra 3, that would be a 1-2-3 knockout combination by Nvidia in the mobile space for 2012. Personally, I am still holding out to see what Tegra 4 (and the other ARM processors released around Tegra 4's time frame) can do, but my wife has expressed interest in a tablet, so I may be getting her one for Christmas.

And this is where nvidia has gone wrong with their idiotic ARM obsession. If they had put as much effort into developing mobile GPU IP as Imagination Technologies did, instead of peddling stock ARM CPU's with tweaks bolted on they would have much more mobile presence and profits than they do now.

Yeah, those $5 chips really have a big profit margin built in

haha. You know very little of what you speak. Nvidia has been working tirelessly on these things from day one. You have to understand that it takes several years to do it right. These early tegra models are very basic, simple ARM designs that serve their purpose well. It gives nvidia chips to sell and allows them to build relationships and have a presence in the ARM market. Nvidia is designing from the ground up chips that are completely custom and unique. But these things take time, and lots of it.

Imagination has been in it awhile and they are now building systems on top of systems. They already have a platform to build on. Nvidia has entered the ARM market in a quick manner and the chips they sell today are slightly tweaked basic ARM designs. With these chips one can see that nvidia is doing things different and aim to impress. They buy nvidia time to bring their fully custom designs to market. The end goal is for nvidia is these chips that are like nothing else. Nvidia is very serious about their CPU and they are totally invested in the ARM isa. Hopefully you can understand why these first few tegra designs are as they are now. Nvidia is laying the footing for their ARM empire.

Nvidia has reinvented themselves and some of their long term fans can't quite comprehend the scope of what is taking place. Nvidia builds partner ecosystems and these things take years to develop and build. They are in it for the long haul - into the foreseeable future and beyond.

They don't need the big profit margin when there is big volume.

How many mobile phones and tablets get sold in a year? and I.T. IP is in 35% of them, even at "only" $5 per chip, the profits very quickly rack up because of the volume of phones sold.

Certainly the profits from the above scenario would exceed nvidia's current mobile profits, and give nvidia a greater presence in mobile devices than they currently have to boot.

nvidia is a nobody in mobile, they are one of "the others", ie: they are not Apple, Qualcomm, Samsung, Google or ARM, aguably the only players that actually have any sort of power in the mobile space.

i see Nvidia with 5% on the chart. A few years ago it was zero

i give you progress ... in a short time it may be 10%

How long have nvidia been in the arm market though? 3 years? for just 5%, that's around 1.66% growth per year, hardly what anyone would call growth with a view to be a serious player in the sector.....

5% of 1.3 BILLION

From 0 to 65 million mobile GPUs in 3 years

i think it is pretty good; let's look at it again next year