Via launches C7 processor in competition to Pentium M

Intel is the giant in the microprocessor industry and AMD is considered the underdog. However, there are more companies trying to make their mark in this field. Transmeta is one and Via is another. Via just renewed their fight for a market share in the notebook computers with their latest launch in VIA C7 processor.

It is directly targeted at the popular processor package for mobile computers Intel’s Pentium M processor. Via has based the C7 processors on the Esther core. The company claims that the C7 range of processors is the smallest, lowest power consuming and most secure native x86 processors in the market today.

The chip is produced on a 90nm SOI process from IBM and the 2.0GHz version uses only 20W at peak levels. When idle, the processor lowers down the power usage to as little as 0.1W. The 1.5 GHz processor has a thermal design power of 12W, while the 1.8GHz C7 uses a maximum of 15W.

The range of the C7 processors is currently available in series of 1.5GHz, 1.8GHz, and 2.0GHz chips and they come with 800MHZ FSB, have SSE2 and SSE3 support and both 128KB L1 and L2 on-die cache memory.

They are certainly not aimed at powering the high-end notebook computers but would be a good choice for thin and light notebooks, mini PCs, green clients, consumer electronic devices like media centers and PVRs, high density server and server appliances that need low power, low heat, high performance and high security.

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