Via Technologies has increased the speed of its Eden ESP processor to 1GHz, promising that the chip still generates so little heat that it does not require a cooling fan.

The Taiwanese company is pitching its processor, based on the Nehemiah core, for devices in which low-power consumption and quiet operation are desirable, such as thin clients, consumer electronics and communications appliances. Like fellow chipmakers Advanced Micro Devices and Transmeta, Via hopes to take advantage of the fact that Intel's flagship Pentium chips are increasingly power-hungry, according to analysts, requiring sophisticated and often noisy cooling systems.

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