nVidia截至一月底的上季財報顯示，營收跟EPS俱優於市場預期，本季展望亦然。營收11.4億鎂，年增3%、季增8.6%，0.32鎂的EPS；毛利率年增1.2個百分點至54.1%，但低于前季的55.4%！展望本季營收可達10.5億鎂，毛利率54.5！

Sales of GPU chips was up 8% from the prior quarter, and up 14% from the prior-year period, at $947 million.

Sales of Tegra processors were down 37% from the prior-year period but up 18% from Q3′s level, at $131 million.

nVidia畢竟是GPU巨擘，SoC僅占11.5%營收，八成三則來自GPU晶片，雖無法分辨板卡與系統占比，不過以NB衰退現象來看，板卡應佔大宗。Tegra處理器依然低迷，雖季增近兩成，年減仍近四成。

Helped by PC gaming, we're capping an outstanding year for our GPU business. Our sequential growth reflected strength in our GeForce® GTX™ desktop and notebook GPU sales, and Tegra 4 for mobile devices. Year‐over‐year growth was driven by GeForce GTX desktop GPU sales, Quadro for workstations, Tesla for high performance computing, and Tegra 4 for automobile infotainment systems. And Tegra K1 is disrupting the auto industry, paving the way to self-piloted cars. The groundbreaking work we are doing in visual computing is expanding the opportunities for our GPUs.
- Jen-Hsun Huang, CEO of nVidia

黃執行長的言論似乎透露著Tegra未來走向，車載應用儼然Tegra的春天。轉進利基市場，利潤為王，亦屬合情。

2012年，nVidia因取得Nexus 7、MS Surface平板訂單，成為非蘋陣營晶片狀元，市占率約三成；TI亦受惠Amazon Kindle Fire銷售，市占僅次nVidia，Qualcomm、Samsung則分居老三、老四。Intel、Mediatek甚至擠不進前五名。


Tablet SoC market share in April of 2013
source：Gartner

但來到2013，情勢大轉。

Allwinner、Rockchip等中國大陸IC設計廠商2012年拿下非iPad平板35%的處理器市佔率，2013年第1季更進一步攀升至37%。其四核心晶片單價已降至8鎂，僅有一線廠Nvidia同等級產品的三分之一。
- Sravan Kundojjala of Strategy Analytics

PS：當地行業數據，2011年中國平板晶片出貨約1200萬顆左右，而2012年出貨飆升至6000萬顆，其中Allwinner貢獻約2200萬顆，超過1/3市佔。2013年上半年Alwinner晶片出貨量超過2000萬顆，已經接近2012年全年出貨量，比2012年同期增長近一倍。Allwinner穩居全球非蘋平板晶片出貨量首位。

PS：
據Digitimes, Rockchip在4Q13的平板處理器出貨量躍居中國第一，Allwinner退居第二，MTK第三。三者共占中國75.7%的份額。MTK的敗筆在主推具通話功能的方案，不敵市場的低價需求，此結果符合八月中某專業分析師的預測：
短期聯發科對深圳平板市場影響並不會太大，原因在於目前Wifi Only平板佔據市場份額8成左右，通訊功能平板只佔有不到20%市場，而且低端通話平板目前主要採用的是AP加2G通話模塊方式。

HiSilicon、Nvidia、Intel出貨量雖倍數成長，然基數仍低，遠不及前三大。

非蘋平板鏖戰，血汗淋漓，孰家捧得桶金歸？

80 percent of media tablets made in China are exported.


Unit: Million of units
Source: Chinese industry estimates@Sep'12

Of the estimated 55 million Chinese tablets shipped in 2012, Allwinner is believed to have shipped 27.5 million units of applications processors, followed by Rockchip at 10.5 million units and Via Technologies’ 5.2 million units, as well as Amlogic and Vimicro.

Gartner指出，「在2012年，Allwinner處理器在中國平板電腦市場的佔有率超過53%。」

Allwinner Technology is planning an IPO on the Shenzhen stock exchange as it prepares its first eight-core product for a variety of systems, including entry-level notebooks.

發展迅猛，Allwinner圖謀深証上市。

Top-tier OEMs are interested in low-cost clamshell designs using a mix of Android, Chrome OS, and Windows RT. The products will probably use Allwinner's A8x series of 28nm chips shipping early next year with four ARM Cortex-A15 and four A7 processors in a big.LITTLE arrangement, running at up to 2 GHz.

CES期間，謠指部宣稱，MIcrosoft已委託Inventec開發售價低至150鎂（約合人民幣908元）的8吋Windows RT平板，積極爭取代工客戶訂單，採用的就是Allwinner處理器。Allwinner雙核月出貨量約百萬顆，其A20在OTT STB市場，跟A23客戶反應都不錯；4核A31/A31s已發布Android Kitkat SDK，料能延續產品壽命。


Allwinner Ultra Octacore A80 Optimus board

源自炬力，全志緣何在非蘋平板SoC出頭？

一批因上市分紅而與公司在2005年不歡而散的炬力工程師于2007年集資成立了Allwinner，接著推出第一項產品-帶PMIC的MP4影像晶片，而2010年再推出支援FHD的全格式MP4影像晶片。

Analog/digital technology, lower power management and multimedia capabilities are the three strengths of Allwinner
- 薛巍, vice president of Allwinner

Just as Actions touts its mixed signal heritage, Allwinner claims expertise in mixed signals as what separates the company from its competitors in the tablet market. Allwinner has been designing a separate, custom power management unit tuned for each of its apps processors.

They attack the second tier OEMs for the most part and are very price competitive, there are enormous numbers of tablets sold in China and India by companies you have never heard of. On top of this they have a pretty strong suite of supporting IP, chips, and software support.

One of the trickiest of these devices to get right is the PMIC or Power Management IC, and that is where Allwinner started. The company will embed FAEs in most places where the big guys won’t go and have a lot of low-level software to bundle with each device. In short they make power management easier and save OEMs money and time to market. For the volume markets, especially the non-premium devices, this adds value enough be to considered something between welcome and a necessity.

Allwinner's highly-integrated custom low-power companion PMU, dubbed AXP221s, “provides 2.2A rapid charging capability, precise up to 1 percent power level detection, and a 21-channel, highly-efficient power-supply management system optimized for multi-core architectures.”

家家都說turnkey，Allwinner手中是啥key？

“The biggest problem with turnkey solutions today is that they don’t offer much differentiation for ODMs/OEMs,” since a typical turnkey solution includes every component one needs to build a tablet or a smartphone.

Allwinner’s goal is to offer more diversified choices to whitebox vendors and ODMs/OEMs.

The company takes the approach of sharing a reference platform with its entire ecosystem partners in the supply chain (boards, parts and components vendors, software developers and hardware box manufacturers) so that they, too, can participate in the platform.


Wile other were putting out high-end A15 chips with massive GPUs, Allwinner had a perfectly adequate A7 solution with a performance matched GPU for a lot less money. this made them the #1 selling 1-core application processor worldwide, #1 dual core for 2013, and #1 quad-core for “non Tier-1 OEMs”.

2011年甫入平板市場的新兵Allwinner，憑藉其市場策略，在其與Rockchip的同場角力中，後發先至。在Cortex-A8-based的A10一炮而紅後，不同於Rockchip往中高端前進，自Cortex-A8升級為A9，Allwinner持續低端，續推A10小改版卻更具價格競爭力的A13，席捲低價市場，令Rockchip回防不及。而在面對Rockchip的Cortex-A9挑釁時，Alwinner選擇了與MTK相同的路線：轉進低功耗的Cortex-A7，雖然還是40nm製程對上Rockchip的28nm，依然不敗。

Allwinner has a two-prong strategy. “We plan to pursue both -- combined baseband/apps processors and standalone apps processors.”

面對LTE數位聚合的潮流，Allwinner並未認為基頻整合是唯一之道。

Allwinner is planning to spread its wings soon -- beyond tablets. The company is looking at three distinct markets in which to grow: the mobile Internet (including both tablets and smartphones), the home (multimedia TVs and smart TVs) and automotive. “For us, it’s easier to get into the set-top business, rather than large-screen TV.” Such a set-top box will be used to receive “Over-The-Top” content.

截至2013年第一季，Allwinner近九成人力都在研發上頭。

Allwinner has 460 employees, 400 of whom are “R&D engineers,” including a sizeable number of software engineers, according to the company.