VIA has begun mass production of an ultra-low voltage version of its C7-M mobile processor, the Taiwanese chip maker said late last week, allowing it on the ultra-mobile PC bandwagon and target Intel's performance-per-Watt strategy too. It's even adopted Pentium M-style 77x series model numbers for the CPU line.

The C7-M ULV is fabbed at 90nm by IBM using the chip maker's silicon-on-insulator process. The CPU is available at 1-1.5GHz speed grades, and at its lowest clock frequency consumes no more than 3.5W, VIA claimed. Idling, it consumes 0.1W, yielding what VIA called "unparalleled battery life".

VIA is offering five C7-M ULV models: the 770, 771, 772, 775 and 779, clocked at 1.0, 1.2, 1.2, 1.5 and 1.0GHz, respectively, and thermal design envelope of 5, 7, 5, 7.5 and 3.5W, respectively. Like other C7-M CPUs, the ULV versions incorporate VIA's PadLock encryption and security engine and its PowerSaver energy-conservation system. They all contain 128KB of L2 cache and support Intel's MMX, SSE, SSE 2 and SSE 3 instruction sets.

The chip's packaging measures 2.1 x 2.1cm, making it even more suitable for small, portable PCs, VIA said. It did not disclose pricing. ®