At the end of 2008, the OSNews team made a short list of the tech-related things they would like to see in 2009. On my list was the hope that we'd see more competition in the netbook market, which is now dominated by Intel's Atom platform, resulting in manufacturers all releasing essentially the same machine, but with a different badge and case colour. Where are Intel's competitors? We know AMD is on its way, we know that the Chinese are producing some noteworthy chips, and that the ARM chip is jumping up and down screaming for attention - but where is Via's Nano platform? Shouldn't it be here already?
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Member since:
2006-09-30
http://www.viaopenbook.com/
They released a "netbook" when noone even thought of reusing this PSION trademark yet, and it even has open specs, including case design CAD files.
It dates back from May 2008.
It's a shame they never made enough hype around it.
Member since:2008-04-11
Member since:2006-09-30
Member since:2006-03-28
No. VIA is real pioneer here. I work with kiosk systems since 2003/2004, and I remember very well VIA introducing mini-itx and Intel dismissing the effort, while requiring nearly a power plant generator for their PIVs :-) Interesting how Intel got back to be the real number one ...
Member since:2009-01-06
Member since:
2005-07-06
There are more developments from Intel this year that will spell trouble for VIA:
- New chipset - the current 945GSE Express is not very power efficient and uses much more power than the Atom CPU itself
- 32nm process shrink
- The next-generation sytem-on-a-chip Atom with integrated video and memory controller.
Edited 2009-01-13 18:18 UTC
Member since:2008-03-17
Member since:2005-07-13
in 2010 (or end of 09) via will be migrating to the 45 or 40nm process. I submitted it as news artictle but it was not posted 
. link here.
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13924_3-10129923-64.html
personaly i hope they go with TSMC's 40nm process (even though they have been using fujitsu for some time now). TSMC has a good track record for their fab process.
Member since:2008-03-17
Member since:2005-07-06
Member since:
2008-04-28
This year will be very interesting for the netbook markets.
The Chinese has released their Loongson/Godson netbook on the 8 Jan 09. I am not sure if their chip runs x86 code or not. If they sell a few million of the Linux version, will Microsoft produce a non-x86 Windows for them?
I know the Chinese can make the netbooks cheap, even the Shaolin temple in South Africa can afford it.
Member since:2005-12-05
Member since:2007-02-17
The Chinese has released their Loongson/Godson netbook on the 8 Jan 09. I am not sure if their chip runs x86 code or not.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loongson#History
Loongson is a MIPS architecture chip.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loongson#Operating_Systems
* Debian Linux, specifically their mipsel port
* Gentoo Linux, work in progress
* Slackware Linux is also being ported, although nothing has been released yet.
* Red Flag Linux
* Mandriva, since September 2007
Apparently, "users have managed to port other operating systems such as Windows CE to the Loongson architecture". The article doesn't say how the said users got hold of a MIPS architecture version of Windows CE.
Member since:2005-07-13
Loongson 3 will be a MIPS/x86 hybrid chip.
"The 65nm Loongson 3 (Godson-3) is planned to run at a clock speed between 1 to 1.2 GHz, with 4 cores first (10W) and 8 cores later (20W), and it is expected by 2010[3]. It adds 200+ new instructions to speed up x86 instruction translation and run Windows [4]. The first version of the chip will only support DDR2 DRAM, will not have SMT support or a built-in network interface."
Member since:2007-02-17
"The 65nm Loongson 3 (Godson-3) is planned to run at a clock speed between 1 to 1.2 GHz, with 4 cores first (10W) and 8 cores later (20W), and it is expected by 2010[3]. It adds 200+ new instructions to speed up x86 instruction translation and run Windows [4]. The first version of the chip will only support DDR2 DRAM, will not have SMT support or a built-in network interface."
Instruction translation is not native execution. The Loongson 3 chip is not an x86 chip, it is more like an extended MIPS chip with pieces of qemu-style emulation (for translation of x86 binary code) encoded as microcode instructions within the MIPS core instruction decoder.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qemu
Member since:
2006-01-22
Member since:2005-07-13
nano not linux friendly? Via is hands down (though intel is catching up FAST) the most friendly company when it comes ot hardware and linux. They have been for years.
http://www.via.com.tw/en/resources/pressroom/2005_archive/pr050412_...
check the date on that press release
Edited 2009-01-13 21:16 UTC
Member since:2006-01-06
Hmmm....yeah, via has great 3d acceleration support for their chipsets....oh wait....they don't!
I'd have to seriously put intel & amd ahead of via for now.
Via blew it a long time ago. They had mini-itx offerings long before intel, that's true. Whenever I went to shop for them their prices were totally outrageous, in the $300+ range for an epia board.
When intel started releasing mini-itx atom boards, first the single, then the dual core for $75 is when the via house of cards started to fall.
Member since:2005-07-13
http://www.linuxdevices.com/news/NS3304438601.html
what were you saying about 3D and VIA? 
