VIA sticks to low-power solutions

During the time when CPU players were searching for ways to break the highest frequencies possible, VIA Technologies decided to steer its CPU development in a completely different direction by focusing on low-power consumption.
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In 2002, the company launched the Eden series CPUs with core frequencies of only 400-500MHz, but which could operate without a cooling fan. Although the traditional PC market did not agree with VIA's point of view, the company's CPUs were a hit in the embedded and non-PC markets.

Since then, the company has continued to push products featuring power-saving, low-power consumption and multi-function integration, and has carved its own niche away from the top-end products made by Intel and AMD.

With environmental issues starting to become a globally recognized topic in recent years, VIA's CPUs are receiving more attention and understanding from PC consumers, and low-power notebook and desktop PCs are also starting to become more popular in the PC market.

In 2008, VIA's C7 CPU netbook platform was adopted by Hewlett-Packard (HP) for its Mini-Note 2133 netbook and the platform was also adopted by several second-tier notebook vendors opening up new paths for the company to become a major player in the PC market.

During the same year, the company also launched its next-generation Nano CPU family, supporting 64-bit instructions and featuring a superscalar, speculative out-of-order architecture. The processors adopt a nanoBGA2 package sized at 21×21mm and manufactured on Fujitsu's 65nm process.

The Nano CPUs offer four times the performance of the company's C7 series, while still maintaining the same power envelope and pin compatibility.

To accompany the Nano, VIA developed the VIA VX800 chipset, an all-in-one media system processor that integrates features of a modern chipset's north and southbridges into a single package measuring just 33×33mm, and thus generating a silicon real estate saving of over 42% over traditional twin-chip core logic implementations.

The complete processor platform can achieve a power draw as low as 7.5W making the platform suitable for small form factor green PCs, thin and light notebooks, ultra mobile mini-notes (netbooks) and high performance embedded systems.

The Nano processor platform earned VIA the Green Award during Microsoft's WinHEC 2008 event in Taiwan, in recognition of the company's efforts to reduce energy consumption and the use of hazardous manufacturing materials, and facilitating ease of recycling.

The company's Nano processor was recently reported to have been adopted for Samsung Electronics' new 12-inch netbook which is expected to be showcased at CES 2009. VIA is also working on a supply chain alliance to assist white-box vendors to join the netbook market.

VIA also recently announced the Trinity platform combining Nano or C7 processors with the VX800 chipset and an S3 Graphics PCI Express discrete GPU for netbooks, nettops and PCs.

VIA Nano processors specifications
Processor brand	Model number	Core frequencies	VIA V4 FSB	Packaging type	Process technology	Idle power consumption
VIA Nano	L2100	1.8GHz	800MHz	NanoBGA2	65nm	500mW
VIA Nano	L2200	1.6GHz	800MHz	NanoBGA2	65nm	100mW
VIA Nano	U2400	1.3+GHz	800MHz	NanoBGA2	65nm	100mW
VIA Nano	U2350	1.3GHz	800MHz	NanoBGA2	65nm	100mW
VIA Nano	U2500	1.2GHz	800MHz	NanoBGA2	65nm	100mW
VIA Nano	U2300	1.0GHz	533MHz	NanoBGA2	65nm	100mW

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BY Chi-Wei Tsao, Joseph Tsai
Source：DIGITIMES