Vision Intelligence Displays launched by VIA Embedded

You know how in Science Fiction movies, starting in the '70s or '80s, people stand around touching screens to get information. In today's world you're more likely to do that with a mobile device like a smartphone or tablet, but the technology is out there for touchscreen displays to be used more in the public sphere and in industry.

The Vision Intelligence Display (VID) series of digital touch screens for embedded applications from VIA, are designed for interactive kiosks, POI and POS embedded systems, and industrial automation controls.

These embedded systems are available with screen sizes ranging between 7 and 19 inches. They are designed to be integrated for use with VIA AMOS or EITX solutions. - Source: Press Release.

VIA shows of HD digital signage at Las Vegas Expo

It seems kind of appropriate that in the city of flashy lights and signs, a Digital Display Expo should be held. The Las Vegas strip property owners ought to go and check out what's on offer. Elvis can now be in HD, with multiple content streams, DirectX 10.1 and the latest OpenGL, thanks to the VIA eH1, a low profile card featuring the S3 Chrome 5400E GPU, designed as an add-on for embedded systems.

At the Expo, will will also be showing off both ARM and X86 based products for digital signage.

"A range of VIA EPIA Mini-ITX boards with additional graphical and HD multimedia muscle will be demonstrated, including boards based on the multimedia-focused VIA VX900 chipset and the latest VIA Nano X2 dual core processor.

Complete digital solutions systems will be shown, including the robust VIA VIPRO panel series which combine a comprehensive range of features in a high quality, industrial-grade LCD panel. Other signage systems include and the VIA VMPC, a fanless, ultra thin system featuring an industry-first thru-chassis VESA mounting design, turning any standard display into a digital signage device in moments. "

The show runs until tomorrow, 24th February. Source: Press Release.

VIA Nano goes 40 nanometer and multi-cores

We all knew that it was coming, and the thing is I think we still have to count it as "coming soon". VIA has chosen the week of the annual Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas as the timing to announce the VIA Nano X2 processor, but the Press Release only gives the basic details; no information on actual model numbers and features has been released, and that leads me to believe that using the word "available" would be a little preemptive.

Based on the Isaiah architecture in current Nano processors, the Nano X2 models will use a 40 nanometer fabrication process and the Press Release says that this will mean that they can use multiple cores without increasing the power draw.

VIA usually hand out some samples to the testing geeky media crowd. It'll be nice to see them come up trumps against Intel's Atom again. Read the full Press Release here.

VIA appoints Simmtronics as distributor/manufacturer

VIA is teaming up with Simmtronics who will "assemble a full range of low-power, highly-integrated pc-1 motherboards in its advanced manufacturing facility in Roorkee, Uttaranchal, India, and distribute the products through its channel partners in India and other markets, including Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Dubai, UAE, Turkey, Iraq, Algeria, and Ghana."

This is therefore much more than a simple distributor agreement, with Simmtronics actually manufacturing VIA products in India, rather than shipping completed systems into the country.

VIA leverages S3 to release graphics card for embedded market

VIA's acquisition of S3 Graphics eleven years ago has seen many S3 Graphics designs incorporated into integrated graphics solutions in VIA chipsets and digital media processors. Whilst VIA has included the Chrome series in EPIA boards before, they have now launched a new PCI Express graphics card, which they claim is the first low profile discrete card ever designed for the embedded industry.

The features of the card include:

PCIe 2.0 Bus Interface
512MB DDR3
Low profile form factor
Dual-Link DVI and HDMI (with HDCP)
Fully programmable DirectX 10.1 Unified Shader Core
OpenGL 3.1 + OpenGL ES 2.0
GPGPU on OpenCL 1.0
H.264 and VC-1 support for Blu-Ray
Support for resolutions up to 2560x1600
1080p/1080i/720p HD-decode
Steroscopic 3D capable
Dual display support

The embedded industry is increasingly finding that customers want better display output and more complex multi-monitor support. The eH1 card aims to fulfill this need.

VIA announces new Pico-ITX with HD and 2 Mini-PCIe

The new EPIA-P830 certainly packs more into the Pico-ITX form factor than ever before. Let's run over the checklist:

Latest VIA Nano processor - check, it has a 1.2GHz Nano E-Series
HD 1080p - check, the VIA VX900 delivers this
Expansion options - check, 2 mini-PCIe ports provides massive amounts of options
HD audio - check, including SPDIF, 6 channel and DTS capable
Advanced memory support - check, DDR3 supported
Networking - check, gigabit Ethernet, plus you've got those mini-PCIe for any other type of wireless connectivity you need
Ports - check, there's 1 channel LVDS display support, an additional 5 x USB 2.0 ports, an LPC connector, SMBus connector, PS/2 support, audio jacks, LVDS, 4 pairs of DIO and two UART ports

Anything more would be just greedy! The Press Release doesn't mention when it will be available.

VIA's dual core design angle

Semiaccurate.com has done a write up about the new VIA Nano DC platform. They give some clear information about the design route that VIA have gone for:

"Unlike most current multi-core processors, VIA has gone down a somewhat older route by sticking two CPU dies next to each other, this means that there's no shared cache and no direct data exchange between the two CPU cores and all core to core communication takes place over the system bus. It's worth remembering that this is very much set to be an Atom competitor and despite the basic dual core design, it should still be more than capable of keeping up with the Atom processors thanks to its superior out-of-order design compared to the Atom's in-order design."

Like many manufacturer-watchers, Semiaccurate.com are eagerly awaiting the VIA nano DC's availability in early 2011 ... not far off now!