I had a long talk on the phone last week with Johnny Wang, a Product Marketing Manager at VIA Technologies. (Yes, this was yet another delayed meeting that I was originally supposed to take at ESC.) The subject was mainly why VIA's line of low-power x86-architecture CPUs are interesting for embedded applications. According to Wang, while RISC processors have owned the low-power embedded systems market for quite According to Wang, while RISC processors have owned the low-power embedded systems market for quite a while, VIA has developed x86-compatible processors that are competitive. We’re talking about devices like set-top boxes, small kiosks, and thin clients; going beyond embedded systems, these are also good for silent desktops.VIA has developed x86-compatible processors and chip sets and small form factor boards that have very low power consumption (e.g. 1 W peak TDP and 100mW idle for the 500 MHz Eden ULV). There are RISC processors with lower power consumption, but when you build them into systems and factor in the north bridge, south bridge, and memory, the Eden processor can be the basis of a lower-power device than you can build with today’s RISC processors. VIA has combined the north and south bridge onto one chip; the Eden ULV line supports 1.8V DDR2 RAM, where most RISC processors need higher power DDR RAM.From a software developer’s point of view, there’s a lot of benefit to developing for an x86-compatible processor, since you don’t have to stretch much to find compilers and tools, and emulation basically becomes a non-issue. From a thermal packaging point of view, if you have a system that dissipates less than a few watts of heat, then you can get away with passive cooling and not worry about fans, which also gives you a quieter system. And of course from a “green” point of view it always makes sense to keep the power consumption and heat dissipation down. There’s more information at https://www.via.com.tw/en/products/processors/eden_ulv/. Software Development