VIA Intros 1-Watt Eden ULV x86 Processor

Who says CPUs have to eat power? Taiwan's VIA has just announced its Eden ULV x86 CPU, which can run at 500 MHz sipping just one watt of electricity.

Taiwan’s VIA Technologies has officially announced new addition to its low-power Eden line of x86 processors: the new fanless Eden ULV runs at 500 MHz sipping just one watt of electricity, and has an idle power consumption of just one tenth of a watt. The low power requirements are sure to appeal to firms designing and engineering embedded systems, which low power consumption and eco-friendly designs are increasingly in demand. Versions of the processor running at 1 GHz and 1.5 GHz consume 3.5 and 7.5 watts, respectively. VIA has included 128K of L2 cache on the processor, along with AES, SHA-1, and SHA-256 encryption, plus a suite of security technologies in the for of the VIA PadLock Security Engine.

"Giving our customers the building blocks to create innovative systems and driving PC technology into new markets defines our ‘Small is Beautiful’ strategy," said Richard Brown, VIA’s VP Corporate Marketing, in a statement. "With its performance, energy efficiency and compact size, our new VIA Eden ULV processor provides a way for embedded developers to add real value to their systems and push the market forward."

Just because VIA is aiming the processor at the embedded systems market doesn’t mean consumers will never see it: VIA is quick to point out the chip can be combined with a VIA CX700/M media processors for support multimedia application and storage solutions; together, the chips consume just 3.5 watts. And low power systems are also low noise systems, since they can operate without fans and other mechanical cooling systems, which means the Eden ULV may turn up in living room electronics and consumer media devices.