CES: Nvidia chips to power ARM-based PCs

Project Denver promises high-performance ARM-based chips with integrated Nvidia GPU

Nvidia is developing chips that will ultimately power PCs, servers, workstations and supercomputers running the next version of Windows, which Microsoft has said will support ARM processors.

At CES in Las Vegas, Nvidia announced a project codenamed Denver that will deliver high-performance CPUs running the ARM instruction set, integrated with Nvidia GPU technology onto a single chip.

The forthcoming processor will be the first fruit of a strategic partnership between ARM and Nvidia, which has obtained the rights to develop its own high-performance CPU cores based on "ARM's future processor architecture".

Nvidia already licenses ARM's Cortex-A15 processor design, which features in the company's current Tegra chips.

These also combine ARM cores with an Nvidia GPU, and are now appearing in products such as the LG Optimus 2X Android smartphone, which is being showcased at CES.

However, Project Denver looks to be aiming higher, and Nvidia has stated that it will support products from personal computers and servers to workstations and supercomputers.

Details of Project Denver are thin on the ground at the time of writing, but references by Nvidia to "next-generation processors that add a CPU to the GPU" could imply that it is working on a closer integration between graphics and application processors, akin to what AMD is doing with its Fusion chips.

"With Project Denver, we are designing a high-performing ARM CPU core in combination with our massively parallel GPU cores to create a new class of processor," said Nvidia chief executive Jen-Hsun Huang.

Nvidia has not disclosed a date for when the new chips will come to market, but it is unlikely to happen before Microsoft delivers the next version of Windows, which is expected sometime in the latter half of 2012 at the earliest.