NVIDIA Corporation (NASDAQ:NVDA) has acquired Icera, a company that builds broadband processors for 3G and 4G cellular phones and tablets, for $367 million. This is NVIDIA’s second largest acquisition after buying Portal Player in 2006. Now NVIDIA will be able to provide application and baseband processors to OEM customers. This will essentially help NVIDIA double their revenue opportunities. [InformationWeek]

Acer has announced a new monitor called the HN274H at CES. Nvidia announced that Acer will soon be releasing the HN274H 3D monitor that supports stereoscopic 3D and has a built-in 3D emitter. The monitor has a 1,920×1,080 resolution, dual-link DVI, HDMI 1.4 inputs, and will have a WLED backlight. Pricing and availability info is not yet known. [CNET]

Intel Corporation (NASDAQ:INTC) has announced today that they have signed a 6 year cross-licensing agreement with NVIDIA. Intel will pay NVIDIA $1.5 billion across 5 annual installments. NVIDIA and Intel have also dropped all lawsuits between the two companies. Below is the full press release:

NVIDIA has recently made a deal with Tesla and BMW to power the navigation, infotainment, and instrument-cluster systems. In the Tesla Model S, the Tegra-based system has a 17-inch touchscreen center console with 3D graphics and live-traffic updates. The Model S also has a smaller 12.3-inch display for the instrument cluster. The BMW will be using the Tegra chip for a 1280×600 display in the upcoming 7-Series, 5-Series, 3-Series, Mini Cooper, and X-Series range. Below is the full press release:

Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) made an announcement today that the next version of the Windows operating system will support the System on a Chip (SoC) architectures, which include ARM-based systems from their partners: NVIDIA Corp., Qualcomm Inc., and Texas Instruments. Intel and AMD will continue work on low-power SoC designs that support Windows on the x86 architecture. Below is the full press release:

Samsung has placed a substantial order for the NVIDIA Tegra 2 chipset. Now it is rumored that the upcoming Samsung Galaxy Tab sequel will be powered by the Tegra 2. The rumor originated from BMO Capital Markets semiconductor analyst Ambrish Srivastava. This is surprising because Samsung has released their own dual core processor known as the Hummingbird. Why use a third party when you have your own components? Samsung works in mysterious ways. [Ubergizmo]

Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) will be using the upcoming Intel Sandy Bridge processor chips for their future MacBooks. This transition will take place in 2011. Intel had officially announced the new processor last January at the CES conference.

Intel Corporation (NASDAQ:INTC) is rumored to be in talks with buying out NVIDIA Corporation (NASDAQ:NVDA). NVIDIA has a market cap of about $8.7 billion and Intel has a market cap of about $109 billion. The only part being worked out right now is the price. nVIDIA is more than likely trying to squeeze more than just a market cap equivalent out of Intel.

In the past week, Intel cancelled their Larrabee GPU project. Larrabee was supposed to be a competitor to nVIDIA and ATi. ATi is a part of AMD Corporation, Intel’s biggest competitor. Intel wants to integrate nVIDIA’s processing units into all of their PC and mobile chips. nVIDIA’s Tegra AXP chips have become very popular in mobile and media devices.

Things between Intel and nVIDIA got really heated when the GPU company announced last month that they were suspending the development of chipsets for new Intel processors. nVIDIA is also working on a System-on-Chip processor optimized for portable Internet devices and is challenging AMD/ATi’s Fusion CPU/GPU hybrid by creating something similar.