Why Low Power? Slide 2 of 30

Go to slide: 1: Low Power Processors 2: Why Low Power? 3: Why Low Power? 4: CMOS Power Consumption 5: Power Saving 101 6: Current Power Status 7: Transmeta Crusoe Processor 8: Composition 9: Composition 10: Composition 11: Composition 12: Composition 13: Composition 14: Applications 15: Applications 16: Applications 17: Transmeta Future 18: The ARM Microprocessor 19: ARM Predecessors 20: ARM Platforms 21: ARM Today: Intel XScale 22: (Untitled) 23: XScale Architecture 24: XScale Architecture (cont’d) 25: Intel 80200 XScale Diagram 26: XScale Architecture (cont’d) 27: XScale Design Tricks 28: Transmeta vs. XScale 29: Low Power Processors: End 30: The End.

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Power is a commodity: it costs money. Right now, while your 1 Ghz AMD Athlon is turned on running its SETI@HOME screen saver, it is costing you money. Precisely how much money is debatable, but we can do a rudimentary calculation to find out... But what about for portable applications? Power is even more important! Precious battery charge must be squeezed for every milliwatt-second it's worth. If you're not using rechargeable batteries, then this power is REALLY expensive... Also, we need to draw out the limited charge available in a battery. There's an old adage: a laptop is useless unless it can make it from LaGuardia to LAX without going dead over the Rocky Mountains. Also, there is the much-touted but less-frequently-practiced concept of the "Green PC". I don't know about you, but I don't actually know ANYONE who actually allows their desktop computer to enter "Suspend" mode, do you? But hey, if it's important to you, go for it.

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