In late January, I reported the VIA announcement of their new Isaiah Architecture, which promised to deliver a massive increase in raw computing power while maintaining a similar power envelope to previous VIA platforms.

Well, it looks like VIA are still on track to start shipping the new chips in Q2, and more and more details about the, as yet unnamed, processor are starting to come out. Yesterday, I read a good article on CNet that commented on a few of these new details. Of particular interest was the figure of 3.5 watts that was mentioned for TDP. Given the in-order nature of Intel’s Atom processors (which look to have only a slightly lower TDP), I imagine chips based on VIA’s out-of-order, superscalar architecture are going to be very popular and certainly the industry's leading processors in terms of performance per watt when they hit the market.

Over the past weekend, VIA management and staff, along with high-ranking officials from the Taiwan Affairs Office of the Beijing Municipal Government, the Huairou District Government and the Beijing Municipal Bureau of Industry Development, gathered in the Huairou countryside, northeast Beijing, for a day of tree planting.

Designed as an activity to not only further VIA’s commitment to green computing, but also as a way to show support for the environmental goals of the Beijing Olympics, 2,008 trees were brought in and planted by an enthusiastic group of officials, VIA employees and partners.

Today heralds a new dawn in energy-efficient computing with the announcement of VIA's new Isaiah architecture. This new CPU architecture promises to deliver a massive increase in raw computing power while maintaining a similar power envelope to previous VIA platforms, i.e. significantly more energy-efficient than any other CPU in its class available today.
 

With Isaiah-based CPUs planed to ship some time in the middle of this year, the VIA Isaiah Architecture has been specifically designed to deliver all the performance and features necessary for running the most demanding computing, entertainment, and connectivity applications, including high-definition video, 3D games, imaging, and virtual worlds.

What impresses me most of course is the implications of this technology. Simply put, it means that power-efficient computing will come of age in 2008. Consumers will soon be able to purchase devices that offer the kind of performance they crave while using significantly less energy than was previously required.

This video features Glenn Henry, the President of Centaur Technology Inc, the company that designed tha VIA Isaiah architecture. It's clear from the video that Glen is immensly proud of what his team have achieved, deeming it 'sort of impossible'. 

I’ve just returned from checking out the latest happenings in the world of consumer electronics at the annual CES held in Las Vegas.

VIA was there showing off a range of products and design wins centered on its small, power efficient processor platforms. Of particular interest to both me and the media who gathered at VIA’s off-site event, were the many Ultra Mobile Devices (UMDs) being showcased.

There were several versions of these super small PCs based on the VIA mini-note reference design, the NanoBook, as well as some innovative new devices that incorporated form factors and user interfaces that I’d never seen before. A crowd favourite was the Noahpad UMD, based on the VIA C7 processor – kind of hard to explain, so I’ll let the reps from the company do it themselves; definitely worth a look.

You can check out the many videos from CES on the right hand side bar under “VIA’s Video Channel”. There’s also a gallery of CES photos, which you can find on VIA Gallery.