Microprocessors from Via Technologies command just about 1% - 2% of the whole market. However, it appears that they power rather interesting devices that chips from companies like Advanced Micro Devices or Intel Corp. just cannot address due to power consumption, price, form-factor or a mix of the above factors. This week Via announced that its Eden processor with 1W power consumption powers new thin clients by Fujitsu.

"Our Via Eden ULV processors allow the creation of a new class of fanless and silent devices that are today seeing significant growth in the enterprise. The Futro thin client series from Fujitsu represents the leading edge of energy-efficient client computing, something we are proud to be a part of,” said Richard Brown, vice president of marketing at Via Technologies.

Via Eden 500MHz ULV chip with 1W power consumption is not a new processor at all. It is based on the Esther micro-architecture unveiled back in 2004 – 2005 and is made using 90nm silicon-on-insulator process technology. The chips incorporate 128KB L1 cache and 256KB of L2 cache, a V4 800MHz processor system bus as well as SSE, SSE2 and SSE3 multimedia instructions. Ester core extends the Via PadLock Hardware Security Suite to include execution (NX bit) protection, Montgomery Multiplier support for RSA encryption and secure Hash (SHA-1 and SHA-256) algorithms in addition to the Via PadLock RNG and Via PadLock ACE.

The Fujitsu Futro S100 thin client is designed for server-based computing and virtual workplace solutions and contains no moving parts i.e. no cooling fans or drive spindles. The system is powered by Via VX800 core-logic set that features integrated DirectX 9-class graphics core and features all the necessary input/output functions, the S100 supports 1GB of DDR2 system memory has two USB 2.0 ports, a VGA port, fast Ethernet networking and internal compact flash-based storage support.

The Fujitsu Futro S100 thin client is compatible with a range of server client infrastructures including Linux-based eLux RL and eLux Lite, VMware, Citrix and Windows CE 6.0.

The Fujitsu Futro S100 is available now to business customers.

Tags: Via, Eden, Esther, Fujitsu