VIA Releases 800 Pages of Documentation For Linux

billybob2 writes "VIA has published three programming guides that total 800 pages in length and cover their PadLock, CX700, and VX800/820 technologies. The VIA PadLock provides a random number generator, an advanced cryptography engine, and RSA algorithm computations. The VX800 chipset was VIA's first Integrated Graphics Processor, while the CX700 is a System Media Processor designed for the mobile market. This is another step in VIA's strategy to support the development of Free and Open Source drivers under Linux, which comes pre-installed on VIA products such as the Sylvania NetBook, HP Mini-Note, 15.4" gBook, gPC, CloudBook, Zonbu, and VIA OpenBook. Earlier this week, VIA hired Linux kernel developer and GPL-Violations.org founder Harald Welte to be VIA's liason to the Open Source community."

Comments

Re:800 pages in length

[smallfries]

A single core on a 3Ghz Core2 can match the performance of Padlock. I can't provide a link as the figures are unpublished but it's not particularly hard to work out how.

Offloading is a good idea for any heavily used operation. Special purpose hardware (like Padlock) is always more efficient than executing a program on general purpose hardware. There is nothing magical about this - overhead has been removed and the execution has been optimised for that specific case.

The fact that the Core2 can keep up says volumes about the poor implementation of the C7.