January 27th, 2009
AMD Geode won't be in XO-2
Just a quick note this morning, that AMD will no longer be developing their Geode line of chips. This chip was the ultra-low voltage processor that powered the OLPC XO laptop and generally ran around 1W of power consumption (versus the 15W of other low-power alternatives offered by AMD).
Although the future of OLPC is uncertain at best, a post on Yahoo Finance notes the following:
OLPC representatives did not respond to a request for comment about Geode’s future. But in an e-mail sent in late December, a spokesman said the group hopes to make some changes with the new laptop. “One challenge with [XO-2] has been to obtain the desired system-on-a-chip, while at the same time avoiding an exclusive arrangement with a single processor vendor,” Jim Gettys of OLPC said at the time.
A Wiki page for the OLPC cites Intel and Via among companies that could potentially supply chips for the XO-2.
One more bump in the road for troubled OLPC.
Follow Chris Dawson on Twitter! Christopher Dawson is the technology director for the Athol-Royalston School District in northern Massachusetts and a member of the Internet Press Guild. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations, but always keep in mind that the opinions expressed here are his own and not those of his daytime employer, even if he talks incessantly about his day job.
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