Microsoft has confirmed that the Nvidia "Tegra" chip is inside the upcoming Zune HD, a big win for Nvidia. "There's been a lot of chatter about us possibly putting the Nvidia Tegra chip in the Zune HD," Matt Akers, software development engineer in test at Microsoft, said in a June 19 podcast. "Well, we're going to go ahead and confirm that. Yes, the Zune HD does have the Tegra chip in it." He added: "So much better battery life, graphics acceleration. This thing's like a mini laptop in your hand."

Tegra is the first processor Nvidia has built for power-frugal handheld devices, a major departure from the large, power-hungry graphics processors that it sells to the gaming rig and workstation markets.The system-on-a-chip (SOC) uses less than 0.5 watts of power, an attribute the main Tegra processor inherits from its power-stingy ARM parentage. (And a tiny fraction of the 50-watt-plus ratings of the chipmaker's desktop graphics silicon.) The defining feature of the Tegra SOC, however, is the Nvidia GeForce graphics chip.