VIA Nano 3000 Series CPU unveiled

A new series of thin and light notebooks for the low powered CPUs has been launched by VIA, the VIA Nano 3000 series. In Q1 2010 it will go on mass production

With various SKUs are available with various clock speeds between 1GHz – 2GHz. Its highlights: 64-bit support and 1080P HD video support.

Features:

• World’s most power-efficient out-of-order x86 architecture
• Full support for 64-bit operating systems
• High-performance superscalar processing
• Most efficient speculative floating point algorithm
• Advanced power and thermal management
• Full CPU virtualization support
• Leading-edge VIA PadLock™ hardware security features
• Pin-to-pin compatibility provides natural upgrade path from other VIA processors

Click on read more to see its comparison with the Atom and Press release!

Broadcom to develop an ARM-cortex A9 CPU

Broadcom, popular maker of computer chips has announced recently that they are working to make their own ARM cortex A9 processor. Right now, they have not said where this chip will be used, but we expect it to be used in Smartbooks: netbooks based on non-x86 platform.

A single core Cortex A9 is capable of delivering twice the performance of current crop of smartphones. When talked into the context of smartbooks, it can have upto 4 cores(!), making multitasking smooth and enjoyable experience

Aigo MID Phone – How about running XP on your phone?

Although we have seen plethora of netbooks and MIDs running Windows XP, but only a handful of companies have come up with the concept of XP-Phone. The Aigo seems to have one in development. It has left and right mouse buttons on the either sides of the device and sports a slide-out keyboard just like many HTC phones. It is also rumored to have an Intel Atom processor. It will have the ability to send and receive calls as-well-as sending and receiving messages.

Commentary: To run Windows XP, you must use an X86 platform, which rules out the possibility of using ARM processors. However, if folks at Aigo use a Linux instead, it may be possible to use the ARM processor and thus it may be able to give the user at least a day of battery life, which is important for a device to be used as a phone. Otherwise, no one would be interested in carrying a huge brick which can give them just few hours of battery life.