Review Index:  VIA Isaiah Processor Architecture Preview - Low
Power CPU  Author: Josh Walrath Subject: Processors
Manufacturer: VIA  Isaiah Architecture (cont'd)  The Isaiah is a
truly competitive part when compared to current offerings from
AMD and Intel.  It is a out-of-order, superscalar design which
utilizes multiple decode and execution units that take it a big
overall power consumption.  VIA Isaiah Wafer from Mystery Fab -
Photo courtesy Russell Johnson  Isaiah is being produced on a
bulk 65 nm process, though VIA is not releasing who is doing the
fabrication.  The previous C7 was produced by IBM on their 90 nm
SOI process.  This time Centaur decided to forgo SOI and work
with a cheaper bulk process (though nearly any 65 nm process has
plenty of power and speed optimizations over previous 90 nm
nodes).  When considering die size, the people at VIA are not
talking official numbers as of yet, but most likely Isaiah uses
around the same amount of space as the older C7 cores.  The core
does not utilize an