Report: Via readying dual-core Atom rival
Updated on January 6 at 11:20 a.m. PST with correction about Nano 3000.
Dual-core Intel Atom rivals are in the works.
Via Nano procesor
(Credit: Via Technologies)Via Technologies is planning a very low-power, dual-core Nano 3000 processor, according to Chinese-language Web site HKEPC.
Via's C7-M processor is used in Hewlett-Packard's 2133 Mini-Note, which preceded the crop of Netbooks based on the Atom CPU. Via processors, however, were subsequently eclipsed by Intel's Atom.
Advanced Micro Devices will target its low-power dual-core "Conesus" at the laptop market segment above Atom's Netbook-centric space.
Meanwhile, Freescale Semiconductor has indicated that it will bring out a very-low-power ARM chip that features a dual-core graphics engine targeted at Netbook-like laptops.
All of these developments indicate that the market for ultra-small devices and laptops should heat up in 2009.
Intel currently offers the dual-core Atom 330 that is targeted at Nettops--small desktop computers.
The dual-core version of the Via Nano--due in late 2009 or 2010--may use a Fujitsu 45-nanometer or TSMC (Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company) 40-nanometer manufacturing process, according to HKEPC. The Intel Atom is based on 45-nanometer process technology.
(Correction: the Via Nano 3000 will not be dual-core. The dual-core version of Nano will ship in the second half of 2009.)
The Via chip may also include SSE4 instruction support, HKEPC said. Generally, SSE4 (Streaming SIMD Extensions 4) instructions speed up multimedia applications.
Via is also slated to bring out other improved Nano processors in 2009, according to the report.
Brooke Crothers has been an editor at large at CNET News, an analyst at IDC Japan, and an editor at The Asian Wall Street Journal Weekly, among other endeavors, including co-manager of an after-school math-and-reading center. He writes for the CNET Blog Network and is not a current employee of CNET. Disclosure. 
