New CPU

[Attila Csipa]

On Tuesday 29 May 2007 19:52:20 Crane, Matthew wrote:
> For a viable commercial product I would expect the CPU to be first of all
> the cheapest one that meets the minimal horsepower requirements, and
> obviously other considerations, such as power consumption.

From the page, the newly suggested SoC is very new, in fact newer than the 
original release date for the Neo1973. I don't think anyone at FIC would 
consider swapping out such a crucial element of the system at this stage of 
development, even if it would be cheaper and faster and more energy efficient 
at the same time.

> Would you prefer to run Microsoft office for 30s or have your battery last
> for a week?

I would need to check the specs for details, but the newer core runs is 
fabricated in 0.13u instead of 0.18u and needs 1.3V+ instead of 1.8V+, those 
are actually signs that this core does not necessarily consume more power 
even though it has more MHz (also take into account improved power saving 
schemes). 

Also #2, MHz do not indicate speed. They indicate clock rate. 266MHz could be 
not enough and plenty at the same time depending on what you do with it and 
what the underlying architecture is.