News From Inside The Industry

Continuing its focus on the fanless PC and small-form-factor media center markets, VIA Technologies Inc. has introduced new Eden and Eden ULV (ultra-low-voltage) CPUs that feature a new V4 bus enabling performance scaling up to 1.5GHz at no more tan 7.5 watts. Like their codenamed-"Esther"-core predecessors, the new Eden processors are a tiny 21mm square. Performing more than 30 percent better than earlier Edens in Windows XP benchmarks, the new Eden models are available at clock speeds from 400MHz to 1.2GHz, with thermal design power ranging from 2.5 watts to 7 watts. The new ULV processors are available in 1GHz or 1.5GHz versions designed for maximums of just 3.5 watts and 7.5 watts, respectively.

VIA's PowerSaver technology lets the 16-pipeline CPUs transfer from a minimum clock of 400MHz to their maximum speeds within a single clock cycle, while 128K apiece of Level 1 and Level 2 cache and MMX, SSE2, and SSE3 multimedia instruction support enhance multimedia performance. The processors also feature execute protection (NX) technology to fight viruses and a PadLock Security Engine that provides on-die hardware acceleration for cryptographic operations.