One Watt Wonder - The New CPU From VIA
by Mark Ontkush, Boston, Massachusetts, USA on 08.24.07
VIA seems to be the rear to watch as they continue to lead the pack in cranking out energy-efficient computing parts. We reviewed this tiny motherboard a while ago and came out grinning. They also have a decent clean computing initiative which has been in place for some time. Now, they have developed the unthinkable - a new fanless processor that chugs along at 500MHz, and only requires 1 watt of electricity to run. And that's when the chip is active; when it's idle, the processor will sip a mere tenth of a watt. Exclamation point.
Who's the market - it's mostly corp-to-corp, to firms that design and engineer embedded systems which require low power consumption and are looking for an eco-friendly design. Near future, VIA envisions producing 1GHz and 1.5GHz versions that consume 3.5 and 7.5 watts respectively. As always, penetration into the consumer market will require a little clock-watching, but for the leaders the future is here today. :: Ubergizmo
This could be awesome for PDAs and cell phones - bringing the battery life up.
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This is no use for PDAs, they've used far more efficient CPU architectures since they were invented. a PDA CPU using 1 watt would be battery suicide.
It is however very impressive on the PC scene, and if people can adjust to it's 500mhz performance (plenty for a "normal" users word processing and email), they'll save themselves a lot of money on electricity.
Nah, I think it will be better off in UMPCs. The battery life will be much improved.
light and not heavy for moveable devices
it can be use in everywhere i thing...
not only would it bring battery life up, it would bring the capabilities up. As low as 500mhz seems, it's pretty damn peppy for small and embedded devices. Good work VIA...
PDAs and advanced cellphones (ie Apple iPhone) already use very efficient and powerful microprocessors such as Analog Devices Blackfin which runs at 600MHz and is highly optimised for Signal Processing applications.
http://www.analog.com/processors/blackfin/
It's also amazing that VIA has so few designers, in comparison to the thousands at Intel and AMD. I have multiple computers that have VIA chips, and they always work well.