Tegra

Tegra is a family of system-on-a-chip (SoC) products developed by Nvidia for mobile devices, embedded systems, and automotive applications. Tegra SoCs integrate a central processing unit, graphics processing unit, memory controller, and often image processing and video acceleration blocks on a single chip, with designs tailored for power efficiency and compact form factors.

The Tegra line began with early SoCs based on ARM architectures, designed to bring desktop-class graphics and multimedia capabilities to handheld devices. Across its generations, Tegra moved from simpler mobile-oriented designs to more powerful and heterogeneous configurations, and from consumer devices toward automotive and embedded use cases. Notable generations include Tegra 2, which added dual cores; Tegra 3 with a quad-core CPU plus a companion core for low-power tasks; and Tegra 4, which emphasized graphics performance and multimedia processing.

Tegra K1 marked a shift with a Kepler-based GPU, offering strong graphics acceleration and the option of a Denver 64-bit CPU alongside traditional ARM cores. Tegra X1 followed, introducing a 64-bit ARM CPU layout and a Maxwell-based GPU, delivering substantial performance gains and being deployed in devices such as Nvidia’s Shield Android TV. Tegra X2 (code-named Parker) represented a further step toward high-end, server-class embedded workloads and automotive applications, with improvements in CPU and GPU performance for platforms such as self-driving and robotics.

Today, Nvidia’s Tegra line is predominantly focused on embedded and automotive markets, including platforms for autonomous driving and robotics, and is used in Nvidia’s Drive and Jetson product families. The consumer mobile smartphone and tablet market has largely shifted away from new Tegra-based devices, though the lineage remains influential in Nvidia’s embedded ecosystem.