2014 is going to be an interesting year in mobile technology. This year, we’ll see the introduction of the first programmable, DX11-class GPUs, the debut of LPDDR4, a new 20nm modem that should offer significant power savings, and the debut of 64-bit mobile ARM chips for the Android ecosystem. Each of these new features is backed by a different major company — and that’s before we toss in the shifting dynamics at the bottom of the market, where companies like Rockchip and MediaTek are winning designs and building their own SoCs to challenge the established players.

This could be the year that Android gaming finally takes off thanks to mobile Kepler, or another 12 months dominated by Qualcomm’s high-end design wins. Here’s what the major players are planning, in alphabetical order:

Nvidia launches first programmable GPU, debuts Tegra 4i in non-US markets

Nvidia faces an uphill battle in multiple markets in 2014. It will debut its first integrated software modem (the Icera i500) with devices shipping in Q2 of this year. Interestingly, Nvidia doesn’t plan to bring the chip to the US market. During Nvidia’s last conference call, CEO Jen-Hsun Huang said that the chip’s launch “will likely be global, but not US.” This is likely a calculated move — the Tegra 4i’s Icera i500 modem doesn’t support CDMA, which Huang has said is a necessity to be successful in the US.

Nvidia’s launch schedule for the next-generation Logan platform (presumably called Tegra 5) is rather unclear. During the last conference call, Huang stated that the ramp up between Tegra 4 and Tegra 5 would be much smaller than the delay between Tegra 3 and Tegra 4 — but also implied we’d see more Tegra 4 hardware shipping in the next few months. It’s thought that Nvidia will first use Tegra 5 in a Shield follow-up, as that product could give an excellent demonstration of the chip’s new GPU.

It’s also unclear if Nvidia is ramping a 64-bit ARM core, or if it’ll stay with a tweaked Cortex-A15 design for the CPU side of its own hardware. With Project Denver (Tegra 6) in the pipeline and slated for 2015, Nvidia may have decided to stay with 32-bit CPUs for this cycle and pour their efforts into building a new GPU. Mobile Kepler will make or break Nvidia’s aspirations in this space. If the chip’s GPU performance is as impressive as Nvidia demoed last June, it could easily be the breakout graphics winner for the entire segment.

Whether that will make Tegra 5 the breakout solution for the mobile market, however, is open to debate. NV chose to push ahead on 28nm rather than jumping for 20nm in 2014 as both Samsung and Qualcomm intend to do. In theory, this will cut costs and speed time-to-market, giving Nvidia a several-month lead over any of the other major providers. The only problem is, NV could find itself beaten on footwork later in the year.

Then again, this strategy worked quite well for Tegra 3, which debuted on 40nm but still found wide acceptance in multiple tablet SKUs for 2012. There’s a case to be made on both sides of this point, and for now we’re going to give NV the benefit of the doubt on staying on 28nm. It’s more important for Tegra 5 (Logan) to move the bar on both CPU and GPU, with better overall power characteristics for the former and a breakaway solution for the latter.

Without an integrated modem ready for the US market, we expect NV will focus on high-end smartphones, tablets, and custom devices like Shield to drive US sales, with the Tegra 4i saved for growth markets where low cost is more important than the latest and greatest feature sets. Here, the phone will face stiff competition from the likes of Rockchip and MediaTek. Both of these companies have grown rapidly and they’re keen to capitalize on a flood of new customers in emerging markets. Nvidia will need to capture strong wins in high-end products to fund the jump for 20nm.

Next page: Qualcomm: New DX11 GPU, 20nm modems, 64-bit CPUs