It is the dream of many computer enthusiasts to have a mobile system that is at least as powerful (if not as flexible) as their desktops. I know that I personally have spent a small fortune on finding mobile devices that can run all of the rendering and editing software I have without tearing my shoulders off my body. For their part both Intel and AMD have cut the gap between desktop and mobile performance in the CPU world, but mobile GPUs have traditionally lagged way behind their desktop counterparts.

On Friday the big news was that NVIDIA had launched two separate suits against Samsung and Qualcomm for patent infringement (International Trade Commission (ITC) and the US District Court in Delaware). In the suits NVIDIA claims that the two companies have willfully infringed on their patented GPU technology and (of course) they would like to start banning devices. So far the list includes the yet to be released Note 4 and Note Edge. The patents in question appear to be Patent Nos. 6198488, 6992667, 7038685, 7015913, 6697063, 7209140 and 6690372.

According to recent rumors it seems that TSMC and Samsung will be able to push out 14nm full node and 16nm half node FinFET products earlier than anticipated. This is certainly going to be good news for many customers of the two foundry companies including Apple and nVidia.

Not all that long ago we reported that there was a chance that nVidia might skip over the 20nm half-node and move to the next full node in line due to issues that TSMC has been having with their 20nm process. 20nm has been the dream of GPU manufacturers for some time and despite the money that has been thrown at it, neither TSMC nor GlobalFoundries can seem to get it right. One reason for this could be due to leakage while another is just that as the process gets smaller building large and complex devices using a half-node just does not work.

The rumors are ramping up about the next generation of NVidia GPUs. Although we already know that the next GPUs (second-gen Maxwell) will not have the unified memory architecture or 20nm process size that NVidia (and everyone else hoped) that does not mean you will not be getting a good product. However, possible specs and performance are not what the latest rumor is all about. This time the rumblings are about possible launch times.

In what should not have been a surprise to anyone, NVIDIA launched their own tablet today. This new tablet is part of their mobile gaming initiative and is a smart move considering some of the setbacks NVIDIA has had when dealing with the mobile industry.

In the world of silicon size matters, but not in the traditional way. Manufacturers are always looking to make things smaller so they can stuff more into the same space. However there are two types of die shrinks. In the CPU world you see what it commonly referred to as full die shrinks while GPUs tend to do things in half-node steps.

In development it has always been a given that if you can code for a specific build of materials or specific hardware platform you can usually get more out of the application you are developing. Nowhere was this more evident than when RISC CPUS were on the market. At the time that DEC Alpha was king we saw a 667MHz CPU slamming 1GHz processors from both AMD and Intel. The reason for this was that the software was specifically coded to take advantage of that platform.

Back when nVidia first launched the original Tegra SoC CEO Jen-Hsun Huang stated that it would change the face of media players, phones and tablets. He fully expected Tegra to become more than 50% of nVidia’s business (revenue) and put the green team to work making that happen. After a few months of hearing about the advantages of Tegra I was finally able to put one to the test in the form of the now-gone ZuneHD. It was an impressive experience and I still have and use that device on an almost daily basis.

New Nvidia GeForce GTX Titan Z graphics card with 12 GB of memory was supposed to arrive to stores on April 29th, in the meantime, rumurs have emerged and saying that will not happen after all.