NVIDIA’s Tegra 3 chipset has found a place in many phones and tablets ever since it went into production, and while its four processor cores and 12-core GPU can be considered quite powerful, they’ve been beaten at the game by other chipsets constantly, such as Samsung’s Exynos, Qualcomm’s Snapdragon, and of course Apple’s beastly Ax series chipsets.

But NVIDIA has been working on newer generation Tegra chipsets for a release next year, and now details about the Tegra 4 chip, codenamed Wayne after comic book superhero Batman, have leaked out courtesy of Chip Hell. Tegra 4 is said to be six times faster than Tegra 3 and will feature the usual 4-PLUS-1 processor cores, but will be based on the newer, smaller, and more efficient 28nm ARM Cortex-A15 architecture.

As for the GPU, it will be powered by no less than 72 cores, compared to the 12 cores in Tegra 3, resulting in the aforementioned six times increase in performance. There will be support for resolutions up to 2560 x 1600 and 1080p video playback at 120hz. Support for 4k resolution is also rumored, which is a resolution only used in cinemas and ultra-high-definition digital TV right now, which would make the Tegra 4 chipset quite future proof as well. There is also support for USB 3.0 connectivity, which is no doubt something that will be important if Microsoft chooses to continue using the Tegra chips in their Windows RT tablets.

NVIDIA is expected to show off the Tegra 4 chipset at the CES next month, though nothing is confirmed on that front. However, with powerful Cortex-A15 chipsets such as the Exynos 5250 and the Snapdragon S4 Pro already laughing at the Tegra 3 chips, NVIDIA sure needs to move fast and bring their next generation chipsets to the market quickly, and hopefully with great LTE support, the lack of which has kept carriers and manufacturers from using Tegra processors in the US.

It is an exciting time in the mobile hardware industry right now, no doubt about that, and NVIDIA looks to be on the right path to take a nice little piece of the pie for itself. Owners of Tegra-powered devices already get to enjoy quite a few exclusive titles and effects in various games, so we can only dream of what those exclusive games for the Tegra 4 chipsets will look like.

Any guesses on when we’ll see the first Tegra 4 powered phones and tablets get launched?

Via: Phandroid