The 28nm A9 chip was expected in the latter part of 2013, but it looks like it might come a bit earlier. We are talking a few months ahead of schedule, not quarters. Grey has already won some design wins with phone manufacturers. It is not meant for high-end phones, this is what Tegra 4 + Icera 500 LTE is for.
Grey should fit nicely into the mainstream performance market, for so-called runner up phones. We have heard that there are some phone designs from big manufacturers based on Grey.
Nvidia always lacked a mainstream SoC and selling its last Tegra generation as a mainstream part didn't really work in the past. Tegra 3 completely overshadowed Tegra 2, and we practically didn’t seen any designs based on Tegra 2 after Tegra 3 showed up.
Nvidia did make some cheaper Tegra 3 versions, like the one used in the Nexus 7 and other entry level products, but having a real dedicated chip for this market will definitely help Nvidia. The future for Grey as a cheaper LTE alternative to Tegra 4 looks good, as long as Nvidia can meet its original schedule.
This chip is also Nvidia’s first crack at integrating a rather complex LTE modem on the core. Let’s see how it goes. Surely it can go a lot smoother than Tegra 4.
