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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.
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
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.
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.
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.
I'm too lazy to enter a sig. Hey wait a second! You tricked me!
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.
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.
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
my karma will be here long after I'm gone
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.