Guide To Designing Low Power Handhelds

randomErr writes "iAppliance had a nifty article about designing handhelds. As the state-of-the-art in low-power CPUs races forward, the CPU becomes one of the most critical components in the design of a handheld. New CPUs such as Intel's XScale, Alchemy Semiconductor's Au1000, and Transmeta's Crusoe provide the ability to scale clock frequency and voltage dynamically. As power consumption varies linearly with clock speed and as the square of core voltage, you'll want to have hardware hooks to be able to adjust both clock speed and voltage as necessary, based on device performance."

Comments

good news for Linux?

[tps12]

Hey, this sounds like a great place for Linux! Cheap hardware has always been Linux's forte. After paying pennies for low end hardware, people tend not to want to shell out for Windows. Linux is the perfect solution.

This flood of cheap hardware will create a proportional boost in Linux market share. The low end, and computers that would otherwise be headed for the trash heap, is the one segment of the consumer market that Linux still dominates.

It's only a matter of time before Tux is in every household!