If I were Transmeta, I wouldn't be so worried about Intel filling a niche as they seem to have their hands full with AMD at the moment. Rather, I would worry about Via and their Eden line of CPUs.
This came in the mail yesterday (excuse the huge post):
For Immediate Release
VIA Unveils New NanoBGA VIA Eden-N Processor, World's Smallest & Lowest Power Native x86 Processor with Industry's Most Advanced Embedded Security Features
VIA PadLock(TM) Security Suite paves the way towards pervasive security for connected PCs and smart digital devices
MICROPROCESSOR FORUM, San Jose, CA, 14 October 2003 - VIA Technologies, Inc., a leading innovator and developer of silicon chip technologies and PC platform solutions, today unveiled the new VIA Eden-N processor at the 16th annual Microprocessor Forum conference in San Jose.
Based on a new streamlined Nehemiah core architecture the VIA Eden-N processor delivers enhanced digital media performance features and the industry's most advanced embedded hardware security technologies in a tiny nanoBGA package measuring just 15mm x 15mm to provide the world's smallest, lowest power, and most secure native x86 processor.
"With the launch of the new VIA Eden-N processor, we are continuing to enhance our leadership in developing innovative low power processor solutions that address the growing security needs of corporate, government, and home users," commented Glenn Henry, President, Centaur Technology. "With its fast, efficient, and cost effective hardware encryption capabilities, the VIA Eden-N processor is paving the way towards pervasive security for all manner of PCs and smart digital devices by enabling robust protection for sensitive corporate and personal data at the system level and across fixed and wireless networks."
World's Smallest & Lowest Power Native x86 Processor
Combining the streamlined Nehemiah core architecture with a new nanoBGA package that measures only 15mm x 15mm, the VIA Eden-N processor is approximately the size of a penny and less than half the size of the Intel(R) Pentium(R) M processor, and with its enhanced thermal characteristics achieves a Thermal Design Power of only 6 watts at 800MHz and 7 watts at 1GHz.
The processor's ultra low power consumption is of paramount importance for small and quiet connected devices because it means that they can run without any cooling fans, significantly enhancing reliability during 24/7 operation. Its small size dramatically reduces motherboard real estate requirements, facilitating the development of smaller, more highly integrated footprints such as the forthcoming 12cm x 12cm VIA Nano-ITX mainboard form factor.
World's Most Advanced Native x86 Processor Hardware Security Features
To address the growing need among corporate, government, and home users to protect sensitive data on their PCs and over networks, the VIA Eden-N processor adds advanced new on-die security features to the existing PadLock Security Suite on the Nehemiah core, including the new PadLock Advanced Cryptography Engine (ACE) and two hardware based RNGs. PadLock ACE provides world-class performance for the US government approved Advanced Encryption Standard (AES), performing cryptographic functions for securing e-mails, personal files, online transactions, and networks, including the latest high-bandwidth 802.11g wireless networks. Padlock ACE encrypts at rates of up to 12.5 Gigabits per second (Gbps) with a 1GHz VIA Eden-N processor, more than eight times faster than the best software AES implementation from a power hungry 3GHz Intel(R) Pentium(R) 4 processor based system that encrypts at a rate of a mere 1.5 Gbps.
"The AES accelerator core in the VIA Eden-N processor provides developers with an easy-to-use and substantially faster substitute for current software AES implementations," said Benjamin Jun, Vice President of Cryptography Research, Inc. "Its high performance and simple programming model should increase deployment of network and disk e
I have had a some experience with Promise cards, namely the Fastrack100 raid series, on the Win32 platform.
Generally they have performed reasonably well, with little hassle. However, there have been some major exceptions/issues:
* BIOS and driver upgrade -- BIOS upgraded A-OK, but the driver achitecture changed slightly between revisions (ie. one dll disappeared) and Win2K just refused to load the new driver (kept asking for a dll that no longer existed), or revert to the old driver. Joy. Spent the weekend rebuilding the server. Promise technical support was useless.
* I am yet to have Norton Ghost work properly with my RAID mirrors. The copy gets to about 99% and dies. Googling hasn't helped much either. Thus to do a ghost I have to disconnect one of the drives from the Promise and stick it on the regular IDE ports. It generally helps to remove the Promise card entirely so it doesn't throw a wobbly about the mirror being broken every time the box is reset. Joy. Mucking around in cases is fun:(
* The manual is generally poorly written. Explanations are unclear, and important information can be burried.
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My Miranda-IM MSN-connected client is responsive. LW.
Don't bother downloading it, its totally arse.
I have had a some experience with Promise cards, namely the Fastrack100 raid series, on the Win32 platform.
:(
:)
Generally they have performed reasonably well, with little hassle. However, there have been some major exceptions/issues:
* BIOS and driver upgrade -- BIOS upgraded A-OK, but the driver achitecture changed slightly between revisions (ie. one dll disappeared) and Win2K just refused to load the new driver (kept asking for a dll that no longer existed), or revert to the old driver. Joy. Spent the weekend rebuilding the server. Promise technical support was useless.
* I am yet to have Norton Ghost work properly with my RAID mirrors. The copy gets to about 99% and dies. Googling hasn't helped much either. Thus to do a ghost I have to disconnect one of the drives from the Promise and stick it on the regular IDE ports. It generally helps to remove the Promise card entirely so it doesn't throw a wobbly about the mirror being broken every time the box is reset. Joy. Mucking around in cases is fun
* The manual is generally poorly written. Explanations are unclear, and important information can be burried.
Other than that, go for it
Is now a good time to mention that Ad-Aware v.6 was just released?