A startup chip company is introducing a power-efficient processor it has been developing for three years, just as the market clamors for energy efficiency. P.A. Semi is offering a dual-core, 64-bit processor today that it claims uses only 5 watts to 13 watts of electricity running at 2GHz, making it 300 percent to 400 percent more power-efficient than comparable processors.
P.A. Semi is making its PA6T-1682M PWRficient processor available to companies that will test it for possible use as an embedded processor in networking equipment for telecommunications, military or aerospace customers, said Dan Dobberpuhl, co-founder and chief executive officer. The chip is based on Power Architecture technology, which the company has licensed from IBM. P.A. Semi claims the new product has a better performance-per-watt rating than an IBM 670MP processor, an Athlon 64x2 processor from Advanced Micro Devices and the Core 2 Duo from Intel. But P.A. Semi won"t be directly competing with AMD and Intel because it won"t be selling into the server or personal computer markets with its initial product.