NVIDIA Bets on ATOM While Waiting for the Nehalem

NVIDIA is in a particularly difficult situation. Its GPU are currently behind corresponding models from ATI/AMD RAdeon, its Fermi GPU will not be ready before the end of the year, and Intel refuses to give NVIDIA a license to develop compatible chipset for its Nehalem. On the other side, the GeForce 9400M has been a huge success from end of 2008, massively adopted by Apple and many other Pc manufacturers. However, the GF 9400M will also disappear with the end of the Core 2 Duo CPUs, early 2010 when Intel will massively release mobile Core i5 and i7 CPUs.
As the company can not find a short term solution, NVIDIA decided to bet on ATOM. They will release by the end of the year a new version of its ION platform, offering even more power and performance for ATOM-based hardware. They will of course have to fight with Intel and the founder is offering all kind of advantages to manufacturers if they choose the ATOM CPU AND its Intel motherboard/chipset instead of the more powerful NVIDIA ION solution.