Via Unveils 1-Watt x86 CPU

DeviceGuru writes "Taiwanese chip and board vendor Via Technologies has introduced a new ultra-low voltage (ULV) processor aimed at industrial, commercial, and ultra-mobile applications. Touted as the world's most power-efficient x86-compatible CPU, the 500MHz 'Eden ULV 500' processor debuted at an Embedded Systems Conference in Taipei this week. Via says its chip draws a minimum of 0.1 Watts, when idle, and a maximum of 1 Watt, making it a great candidate for consumer electronics devices such as UMPCs, PVRs, and such."

Comments

How does it compare?

[Ed Avis]

How does this chip compare in performance per watt against ARM, PowerPC and the like?

The article doesn't say what socket and interface the chip uses. Are they still on Socket 370?

Re:How does it compare?

[dan the person]

I think the popularity is half x86 compatibility(windows users) and half retail cost / availability.

When i was building a linux based PVR, x86 compatibilty was not a deciding factor *. What i wanted was a cheap fanless board that could playback mpeg2 and divx, with a PCI slot for a tuner card, TV-Out, and SATA.

When i was looking there were hundreds of Via C3/C7 based boards from heaps of manufactures, with countless different options. There were one or two ARM and PPC boards, even one with a transmetta CPU, but they didn't have TV-Out, or they had TV-Out but no USB or PCI.

I would have loved to go with another architecture but the market for retail consumers just isn't there.

* Actually, now i've said that i imagine compatibilty of the tuner drivers with non-x86 could be an issue.

Re:laptop anyone

[cnettel]

Yes and no. If we're going to have a backlit screen anyway (even with LEDs), we can only gain so much by reducing the CPU consumption. Amdahl's law and all that. I think the summary is quite right in pointing out UMPCs and similar devices instead.

A really low-power Dothan or single-core Yonah will sure draw a few multiples of this beast, but they will do so while giving much better performance.

holy cow! and their 1.5GHz is only 7.5W

[spagetti_code]

My mythtv PVR uses the MII12000 (1.2GHz), which is rated at
20-30W. With HDD, DVD, encoder card etc, it draws 80W on start,
and somewhere between 30-60W when running.

Take 10-20W off my figures by using their 1.5GHz ULV
and you get potentially more processing power at less
than 50W!

I know that VIA chips are pretty feeble (i.e. their 1.5GHz
chip is probably closer to a 1GHz intel chip), but with an
encoder card (dual actually) I can be recording two
channels with the CPU at 10%. Given their mobos have
mpeg decoders on board, I can add watching a DVD or TV
for another 30-40% CPU time.

The only thing is ad-skipping and re-encoding are pretty
slow.