VIA Launches Vista-Ready VIA CN896 for Power-Efficient Desktop and Embedded Systems

VIA Launches Vista-Ready VIA CN896 for Power-Efficient Desktop and Embedded Systems

VIA Technologies, Inc, a leading innovator and developer of silicon chip technologies and PC platform solutions, today launched the VIA CN896 digital media IGP chipset, certified Vista-ready by Microsoft and designed to provide OEMs with a flexible platform for power efficient embedded and desktop systems. At the heart of the VIA CN896 chipset is the VIA Chrome9 HC IGP (integrated graphics processor) featuring a DirectX 9.0 3D accelerator for high performance and a 2D accelerator for productivity applications, while the Chromotion video display engine boasts advanced hardware-based video processing and rendering such as MPEG-2 decoding acceleration and picture enhancement through adaptive de-interlacing and video deblocking technologies. The VIA CN896 chipset supports the VIA V4 Bus for the power efficient VIA C7 and VIA Eden embedded processors and VIA C7-D desktop processors, which are recognized by Microsoft as designed for Windows Vista.

The VIA CN896 features a dedicated CRT interface as well as flexibility for additional video ports such as DVI transmitter, LVDS transmitter, SDTV and HDTV TV encoder, providing customers with the ability to tailor VIA CN896 systems for use with flat panel displays, a wide variety of LCD panels, TFT color panels, DVI monitors and TV displays, with separate display engines enabling two outputs to display at the same time, with different information and at different resolutions, pixel depths and refresh rates. This greatly enhances the display options for customers designing thin clients, industrial PCs, point of sale machines, digital signage and other embedded products. The inclusion of a 16-lane PCI Express port provides additional upgrade options for desktops, whilst keeping the base configuration affordable for the mainstream, and a further 1-lane for the latest peripherals.

“The VIA C7 processor-CN896 chipset combination provides all the flexibility in display options that embedded customers need, within a very low thermal profile,” said Chewei Lin, Vice President of Product Marketing, VIA Technologies, Inc. “While in the desktop space, the VIA CN896 meets the requirements for systems that are currently in demand, whether small footprint or standard sized, by providing a robust Vista capable solution with good upgrade options.”

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