P.A. Semi introduces PWRficient chip lineup
You know how we love a gadget underdog story, so without reminding us too much of
Transmeta, we're already a little in love with
P.A. Semi, the "new" processor company that bided their time for two years before announcing their first product this
week, the PWRficient multi-core 64-bit microprocessor. Their first PWRficient chips will supposedly run at 2GHz, but
use only between five to 13 watts of juice (to, say, the 20-25 estimated watts of a 2GHz Pentium M) and apparently make
use of the IBM Power instruction set (i.e. will be theoretically compatible with PowerPC chips). We know they've got to
be a bit bummed that they just lost a huge potential deal with Apple since they're
switching to Intel (it's not far fetched to
postulate that the PWRficient might well have been the chip that succeeded the G5 in PowerBooks with Power), but the
company's headed up by Dan Dobberpuhl, the same man who helmed DEC's Alpha CPU dev team and SiByte, so we assume dude's
got some serious business up his sleeves and didn't come this far to worry too much about where Apple plans on taking
the Power architecture.
[Via Forbes]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
KC @ Dec 19th 2005 12:55AM
Everything looks good in print.... But how these chips perform in the real world has yet to be determined....
TZK @ Dec 19th 2005 12:55AM
They have engineers from AMD, Intel and the guys who worked on the Alpha as well. Not a bad resume.
8 core chip by the end of 2007.... that might be wishful thinking :)
But it should be a fun ride!
Google Nazi @ Dec 19th 2005 12:55AM
Weren't intel working on a wormhole processor to be launched by like 2012 or something? Hmm.. Anyway, as neat as this thing is, I have to ask WTF is a Pentium M? Concider me a PC junkie though I have lost track of the names for processors for the past year and a half. Too many releases >_>
Is Pentium M the highest grade right now or is this for what I remember to be used for Notebooks?