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Posted on 07-09-2009

The best inventions and leaps in technology usually come out of the land of the rising sun. And now, a consortium of seven Japanese companies has set its eyes on the CPU market.

Discontent with Intel’s dominance in the sector, the coalition of processor designers and manufacturers has teamed up to develop a revolutionary new microprocessor. The coalition is led by the recent merger of NEC and Renesas – now the world's third largest chipmaker – and includes Hitachi, Toshiba, Fujitsu, Panasonic and Canon. Engadget came up with a nickname for the group that is going to stick for a long time: The Seven Samurai.

The new microprocessor will be based on research conducted by Waseda University professor Hironori Kasahara on innovative energy-saving software. What’s the goal?

The final, commercial CPU will run on solar cells; it will be smart enough to use only as much power as is needed for the data being processed at the time; and it will remain switched on even during power cuts. A prototype is reported to be running at 30 percent of the power of current CPUs.

This new standard, along with the CPU, will be introduced in 2012, VR-Zone reports. And it is not just PCs – derivatives of the processor will be designed for an entire range of consumer electronics.

It will take some time before this technology becomes widely adopted, but what’s got us even more excited is the expected symbolic reply from Intel. We can’t wait!

Sources: Engadget, VR-Zone

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