Intel Developing Ultra-Low Power Chips

ErikPeterson wrote to mention a C|Net article discussing Intel's development of low-power chips for mobile applications. From the article: "The chipmaking giant announced on Monday a new technique that it said could help cut back on wasted battery power in cell phones and mobile devices by as much as 1,000 times current levels. Active computing accounts for only half the power Intel processors use. The other half is gobbled up by a leakage current in transistors that exists when a machine is in a low-level sleep state, Intel said. The new version of the company's 65-nanometer wafer-making process, internally known as P1265, is better than Intel's current process at helping prevent the extra power from being sapped from the battery, the chipmaker said. "

Comments

Re:It was about time!

[AKAImBatman]

It was about time that Intel started worrying about their chips power consumption and heating.

You think they haven't been? Ever hear of the Centrino architecture? It finally knocked Apple off the top battery performer pedastal a year or two ago.

What you're thinking of are their high end Pentium IV chips, which are quickly approaching the per-centimeter thermal dissapation rates of a nuclear powerplant. (I say as the fans on my Dell case spin up quite loudly...)