VIA Isaiah CPU released.
Posted on May 29, 2008 by tom
Filed Under General
VIA Technologies released their newest CPU, codename Isaiah. First announced back in 2003, after 5 years of development and testing, there is no better time for its completion (right along with Intel’s Atom). Nano is the official name for the family of processors with the Isaiah core.
The Nano’s are being released in two different versions: VIA Nano L-series, which are processors for power-efficient desktops and mobilePC applications and the U-series (ULV), which will be ideal for small form factor computing and ultra mobile devices. The max TDP for the U-series is 8W and 100mW in idle mode. The Nano is socket compatible with C7 and can be used with all current C7 compatible hardware.
There are several new features supported by Nano:
- 64-bit Superscalar Speculative Out-Of-Order MicroArchitecture: Supports a full 64-bit instruction set and provides for macro-fusion and micro-fusion functionality as well as sophisticated branch prediction for greater processor efficiency and performance.
- High-Performance Computation and Media Processing: The high-speed, low power VIA V4 Front Side Bus starting at 800MHz, plus a high floating point unit, support for new SSE instructions, and two 64KB L1 caches and 1MB exclusive L2 cache with 16-way associativity gives a big boost to multimedia performance.
- Advanced Power and Thermal Management: Aggressive management of active power includes support for the new “C6″ power state, Adaptive PowerSaver™ Technology, new circuit techniques and mechanisms for managing the die temperature, reducing power draw and improving thermal management.
- Scalable Upgrade to VIA C7™ Processor: Pin-to-pin compatibility with current VIA C7 processors enables a smooth transition for OEMs and mainboard vendors, enabling them to offer a wider range of products for different markets with a single board or system design.
- Greener Technology: In addition to full compliance with RoHS and WEEE regulations, product manufacturing will be halogen-free and lead-free at launch, helping to promote a cleaner environment and more sustainable computing.
- Enhanced VIA PadLock™ Security Engine: Industry-leading on-die hardware cryptographic acceleration and security features, including dual quantum random number generators, an AES Encryption Engine, NX-bit, and SHA-1 and SHA-256 hashing.
VIA states that Nano outperforms Intel’s Atom. I’m very interested to see the side by side (Computex 2008) testing of Mini-ITX boards “armed” with both CPUs.
More information here:
http://www.via.com.tw/en/products/processors/nano/
Thank you for reading,
Tomasz Mikolajczyk
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