ZiiLABS, a relatively unknown player in the mobile space, is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Creative Technology Ltd, and introduced its JAGUAR family of high-performance, energy-efficient Android tablet reference platforms a few days ago.  Designed for the latest Android 3.X compliance, the modular 7″ and 10″ tablets promise superior performance, low-power consumption and via their latest creations, the ZMS-20 and ZMS-40 StemCell Processors.

Engineered for high-quality, connected and immersive tablet computing, the JAGUAR platforms is designed to reduce barriers for OEM’s to make awesome tablets. From what we know, they are actually blazing fast, and hold their own next to Nvidia’s Tegra 2, and potentially even what they have brewing with their Tegra 3 SoC too. The ZMS-20 and ZMS-40 will deliver stunning 1080p video playback, immersive OpenGL ES 2.0 3D graphics, high-quality HD video calling and a rich desktop browsing experience including Adobe Flash Player.

ZiiLABS had this to say:

Based on a motherboard concept, the JAGUAR allows an OEM or ODM to bring to market their own Android 3.X tablets in the shortest possible time. The JAGUAR platforms combine the sleek Industrial Design templates (ID), proven high-speed system design and peripheral modularity required to enable OEMs and their ODM partners to innovate and differentiate critical components such as the LCD display, touch controller, cameras, ID and modem connectivity.

JAGUAR reference tablets based on the ZMS-20 will be shown in the ZiiLABS suite (Grand Hyatt Hotel Taipei, Grand Room, #1137) at the Computex 2011 tradeshow in Taipei, Taiwan between 31 May and 4 June. The ZMS-20 features 48 StemCell media processing cores and dual 1.5GHz ARM Cortex-A9 MPCores.

“As consumer demand for a wide-range of smarter, more connected tablets increases, so do the OEMs’ needs to innovate while also shrinking their time-to-market” said Hock Leow, president of ZiiLABS. “The JAGUAR platform combines our deep understanding and experience working on consumer devices and tablets with our ZMS processors, reference platforms, software and certification know-how to deliver a state-of-the-art platform that minimizes the complexities of introducing next-generation tablets.”

 

 
“Timing is everything and a frenzied land-grab is taking place in the tablet computing market,” said Sim Wong Hoo, Chairman and CEO of Creative Technology. “Android 3.X and ZMS-20 are designed and engineered specifically for this new and exciting tablet market where growth is expected to approach 100 million next year. The JAGUAR platforms based on ZiiLABS’ ZMS-20 and ZMS-40 processors push performances to a new level that the world has never seen before and OEMs and ODMs can leverage this with JAGUAR to quickly stake a sizeable claim in this explosive market.”

Existing JAGUAR based tablet designs will be able to take advantage of 6 GHz of quad-core computing by migrating to the compatible quad ARM-Cortex-A9 based ZMS-40.

JAGUAR Platforms – Key Features

• Powered by ZiiLABS ZMS-20 and ZMS-40
• Dual and Quad Core 1.5GHz ARM Cortex A9 cores with Neon
• 48 and 96 core floating point StemCell media processors
• Robust Android BSP and Middleware
• Designed for Android 3.0+ Compliance
• Modular Motherboard Design to enable OEM/ODM Customization
• Wide-angle 7”(1024×600) and 10” (1280×800) LCD options
• Capacitive and Resistive LCD touch options
• Up to 2GB high-speed 64-bit memory
• High performance and low-power LPDDR2-800 for super high memory bandwidth of 6.4GBytes per second
• DDR2/DDR3 for low cost
• 5MP rear and HD front facing camera as standard
• Wi-Fi b/g/n, 3G/4G/WiMax and Bluetooth 2.1+EDR
• GPS, accelerometer, digital compass and gyroscope
• Stereo speakers and dual Microphone array
• Up to 64GB internal storage
• USB 2.0 port
• SDHC Card slot
• Extended battery life with robust dynamic power management
• Instantaneous On feature

The real questions on everyone’s minds are these: Who’s buying, how fast are they, how soon can we expect them, and how much will they cost? Thoughts?