That would explain why Intel sold XScale :)<br>IHMO there is a direct relation between the instruction set and the power consumption:<br>The more complex a processor is the more power it needs.<br>Let's explain it the easy (and not fully correct) way: When you want to see the complexity of a microprocessor in numbers you can take the number of transistors.
<br>ARM9 Chips are under 10 million, VIA C7 about 25 million, Intel Core2Duo about 300 million, IBM Power6 800 million.<br>This all are modern (except the ARM) and powerful processors and the more transistors they have, the more power they need.
<br>Of course there are chips with less transistors needing much more power, there are several reasons for this.<br>But as long x86 is more complex than other architectures it will need more power. <br>Well, I'm definately not a expert, if one reads this, maybe he can explain :)
<br><br>P.S. Current XScale are still producesd in 180nm, Intel is down to 65/35nm. The leakage current may be higher in ARM/XScale devices than it could (or should) be.<br><br><div><span class="gmail_quote">2007/6/10, Dr. H. Nikolaus Schaller <
<a href="mailto:hns@computer.org">hns@computer.org</a>>:</span><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">> So I still see no reason for having a energy comsuming x86-monster
<br>> in my phone. :)<br><br>If I read all the rumours around iPhone and new UMPC platforms<br>correctly, Intel is working heavily on lowest power versions of x86-<br>Instruction set compatible CPUs.<br><br>And IMHO there is only a very weak relation between a processor's
<br>instruction set and its power consumption.<br><br>Nikolaus Schaller<br></blockquote></div><br>