It doesn’t seem too long ago that we were excited about smartphones with dual-core processors and we are anticipating the reveal of some at MWC 2012 later this month. However we were not sure when quad-core NVIDIA Tegra 3 smartphones would start being actually shipped but it now seems that day is very close as some will be released in this current quarter.

We’ve already told recently about rumors that HTC will reveal Tegra 3 quad-core smartphones at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona and also about LG’s quad-core offering, the LG X3, so news that they could also be released as well as unveiled this quarter will please an awful lot of people. At NVIDIA’s yearly earnings announcement yesterday CEO Jen-Hsun Huang asserted, “This quarter we are expecting to ship Tegra 3 based superphones. At Mobile World Congress is when we expect to announce these devices, and we expect to announce and ship them this quarter,” as reported here.

As well as this Huang revealed that NVIDIA’s upcoming integrated LTE chipset, dubbed Grey, will also be coming to devices at some point this year. Eager to compete against Qualcomm which intends to produce Snapdragon chips with integrated LTE, NVIDIA it seems, is anxious to stay a step ahead and wants to bring out its integrated 3G/4G LTE system-on-chip “sooner rather than later.” The benefits of LTE phones and tablets having radio chips integrated with the processor will mean a better battery life as well as other advantages.

NVIDIA expects its Tegra 3 chips to drive huge growth in this coming year and Huang also told how as well as Android Tegra 3 smartphones there could well be Windows 8 quad-core offerings by the third quarter. You can see a video from NVIDIA about what the Tegra 3 chip has to offer below this story. It’s all fascinating stuff then and it seems as though it won’t be too long at all before we start getting our hands on those quad-core smartphones.

It has been rumored that the Samsung Galaxy 3 might step up to quad-core and Apple’s iPhone 5 has also been rumored to include a quad-core processor? If these two mighty flagships don’t appear with a quad-core chip do you think their inevitable huge sales will be dented? Will your next smartphone be a quad-core device?

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