The rest of the phone elite will wait for 28nm to do the quad core, as the thermals go down significantly and two Cortex A15 cores can end up faster than four Cortex A9 40 / 45nm cores. So far Texas Instruments, Qualcomm and the rest of the phone / tablet chip manufacturers, including Samsung and Apple haven’t announced any Quad core Cortex A9 based 40 or 45nm quad chip.
Nvidia is expected to ship its Kal-El and have it in designs in Q3 2011 or this current quarter. Most of the big chip manufacturers will have to wait for 28nm to make its chip. Our sources have indicated that Kal-El might be the biggest chip for tablets / phones so far, as it ends significantly bigger than Tegra 2. Tegra 2 should be some 49 sq mm while Kal El was reported to be close to 80 sq mm.
Quad cores based on A15 should probably end up much closer to these 49 sq millimetre, but A15 28nm Quads will only ship at some point of 2012, most likely the second part of it. TI already said it will only happen with retail present of actually products in fall 2012 for OMAP 5.
Looks like Nvidia will be only quad core mobile solution in town for 2011 and at least some manufacturers will have devices available before this Thanksgiving and Xmas.