

Today, Nvidia made
a
breakthrough announcement at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain,
revealing its first mobile applications processor, the
APX 2500.
Nvidia's APX 2500 combines an ARM11 MPCore processor, a high-definition
audio/video processor, an ultra-low-power GeForce graphics processor, a
16/32-bit low-power DDR (LP-DDR) memory interface, and support for both NOR and
NAND flash memory. The ARM CPU core isn't anything to get all that excited
about, but one can't say the same for the A/V processor and integrated GeForce
core. Nvidia claims that the APX 2500 is not only able to play back and to
capture high-definition 720p video, but that it's power-efficient enough to
display 720p video continuously for up to ten hours and to play audio for up to
100 hours. The GeForce core also supports OpenGL ES 2.0 and Direct3D Mobile
application programming interfaces in order to accelerate both 3D user
interfaces and 3D games. Nvidia also revealed that it developed the APX 2500 in
close collaboration with Microsoft with an eye towards "next generation versions
of the Windows Mobile operating system," so you can probably count on it hitting
Windows Mobile smart phones later this year.