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AMD's New Low-Power CPUs
illumina+us writes "AMD has released a new family of CPUs targeted at the portable computing market. The new CPUs, collectively named Alchemy, consume less than 1Watt of power. The CPUs have already been named the CPU of choice for Tivo's new Tivo-To-Go technology and are powerful enugh to run DivX, WMV9, and MPEG. The AU1550 consumes just 0.5 Watts at 400 MHz and the AU1100 consumes 0.25 at the same clock speed. These processors consume so little energy they don't even need a heatsink."
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A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
These processors are new but the Alchemy name is not. AMD has been selling alchemy processors for at least a year.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
# Support for MPEG1, 2, 4, and WMV9 scaled up to 1024x768
# MPEG2 main profile/main level (720x480, 10Mbps, 30fps)
# MPEG4 advanced simple profile/level 5 (720x480, 8Mbps, 30fps)
# WMV9 main profile/medium level (720x480, 2Mbps, 30fps)
Doesn't look too bad to me. This was for the Au1200 btw.
http://www.sharpsma.com/sma/products/mcu_soc/LH7A4 04_splash.htm
Please look at the Crusoe Processor They consume under 2 watts and I believe they have broken the Ghz barrier.
Fly me to the moon Let me sing among those stars Let me see what spring is like On jupiter and mars
The Analog devices blackfin is a good chip for such devices as well (it is classed a "hybrid DSP"). It consumes 280mw at 600 Mhz, and also comes in a dual core. uCLinux runs on it as well. Cool chip with similar capabilities, but definetely a different marketing angle.
(this is offended to the end of comments you post, 120 chars)
bluegene is based on that concept, 700mhz per cpu, 12 watts, i believe it achieves something like 6watts per gflop.
until we can get that kind of low power consumption on desktop chips? is there something inherent in desktop applications that prevent some chip maker from making a really low-power, high-performance (~1GHz) processor?
Super low power consumption and ultra high speed are inherently at odds with each other. It's like the memory/speed tradeoff that programmers have to deal with. (Crusoe is up around 1GHz, but they're already at twice the wattage of these chips.)
Remember, all CPUs had this kind of power consumption back in the day. You never saw heatsinks on CPUs until the mid 1990s. And processors in 8-bit home computers used milliwatts of power.
You mean like these?
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I've had an Alchemy Au1100 devboard on my desk for over a year. The disk that came with the devboard is dated 1-27-2003.
There is already a very complete Linux port mostly done by Montavista.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
The A1x00 family has been around for a couple of years. Also it should be noted that the Au1200 is the only chip in the family intended for the Portable Media Player (PMP) market with its built in Media Acceleration Engine (MAE). The MAE is what allows the Au1200 to decode MPEG2/MPEG4/WMV9 at D1 resolution. The Au1550 is meant for network devices like gateways and routers.
Realistically, it doesn't matter much that they aren't x86. To me at least. I'm sure Linux will be running on it in no time.
Besides, they're aiming for the PDA market, which doesn't have x86 compatibilty as it stands anyhow.
I wonder if this technology will be adapted to the PC market in any way, shape or form. With such low power consumption, they are a fanless CPU, and a fanless power supply would probably be feasible I imagine. True silent computing sounds good to me... or is that doesn't sound...?
In any case, it is very cool tech, literally, and figuratively speaking.
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Actually, these have little to do with Transmeta. Alchemy chips aren't x86--Transmeta chips are--so they're not competing for exactly the same market segment.
Now AMD GEODE processors on the other hand, THEY compete with Transmeta (and Via). Too bad the available motherboards don't seem very exciting, the chips themselves don't seem bad.
We have ported eCos RTOS to Au1x00 and have used Alchemy CPUs in two embedded products. They have outstanding performance, good GNU tool support, and easy-to-understand MIPS risc goodness.
One thing to watch for: The onboard peripherals are geared more to PDAs (no real watchdog, limited-feature timers, etc). You would want to check your embedded application requirements. On the plus side, the JTAG TAP makes board support and debugging a snap.
So, for a PC-compatible CPU, it looks like the VIA Eden series is still on top?
VIA Eden ESP 4000 (4.0 x 100MHz)@1.05V: 1.7W typical, 3.0W max
VIA Eden ESP 10000 (5.0 x 200MHz)@1.05V: 6.1W typical, 7.0W max
Unlike a previous poster, I've been running a VIA EPIA M 10000, 1.0GHz (Nehemiah) on a workstation, and a VIA EPIA V, Eden 533MHz on a server with no issues.
They aren't. However, AMD does have a line of x86 embedded processors known as Geode. For example, I see here a 400Mhz Geode consumes 1.1 watts of power. This is part of their more general x86 everywhere plan...with x86 chips as cheap as $1.
If you've been paying attn to the stock market, last quarter AMD did not make nearly as much as they were expecting on flash sales because Intel was dumping flash memory in order to depress prices of flash. Thoughts are that this was done specifically to hurt AMD's bottom line.
Actually, AMD is losing money with their flash business. They may be looking at dumping those products...
AMD Without the flash?
As below, so above and beyond, I imagine drawn beyond the lines of reason. Push the envelope. Watch it bend.
There is the fink http://fink.sourceforge.net/ project, Gentoo for Mac OS X http://www.metadistribution.org/macos/, Darwin ports http://darwinports.opendarwin.org/ or you could just install linux.
Also check out versiontracker.com for a lot of Open source software with pretty GUIs.
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You're entirely correct. There's no FPU in these chips, right up to and including the au1550. If you want floating point, you have to do it in software. It's gross and slow, by the way.
No, it's not, but the fact that AMD is creeping into a market that Intel currently dominates, and AMD has already declared dominance in the gaming and server microprocessor market in 2004, so this could cause serious problems for Intel if the AMD chips turn out to perform better with less power than Intel's current offerings. Sure the processors are running at slower mhz speeds but as we all know a a slower mhz AMD processor can perform at the same level as a much faster mhz Intel processor
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If your primary heat is electric, the only cost difference is in computer repairs since computers are far more likely to fail than an electric radiator.
During summer though, I keep only the PCs I need turned on and I take a break from SETI&all.
Well, excepting the cost of buying and maintaining the hardware, the pc should consume just as much power as an electric heater that consumes the same power. This is a thermodynamic inevitability. I have always understood that electric heat is something like 2-4 times as expensive as gas heat. This makes sense, since oil-fired coal plants operate somewhere in the 40-50% efficiency range (whereas, if you burned it in your heater you'd only give up the small amount of heat in your exhaust gas). Admittedly, natural gas is more expensive than the oil that power plants burn, but you could probably offset that with the losses due to the transmission on electrical power lines.
Next laptop I get I plan on it being a Transmeta laptop, they seem to be friendly towards linux
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