AM (myname4rwt@jee.male) on 10/1/09 wrote:
>
>Hmm, how about because according to Intel it's what they made it for: "The Intel
>Atom Microarchitecture has been designed from the ground up to deliver high performance-per-watt efficiency"
>
>http://download.intel.com/pressroom/kits/events/idfspr_2008/IDF_Day1_FactSheet.pdf
>

Yes, but thats has more to do with mix of both vertical and horisontal transistor block designs, not in-order vs out-of-order as you are implying. If you think about it, which cpu in Atoms peer-group (MPU's for portable devices) was not designer for power efficiency?

Or is Atom different becouse it was designed power efficient form the "ground up"? Well, there you have a point, but becouse that is due to the layout of the ground circuits of the chip, which are rougly half based on veritcal layout as opposite to a pure horisontal design.

The direct benefit of the veritcal CPU pipelines is the much improved heat dissipation, which heats up the chip morfe evenly leading to lower leakage current. The chip can abosbr only so much heat in a given timeframe, so there is not room for much leakage current produced heat, and due to the laws of thermodynamics, the leakage current is inhibited.

It is important to ground all electronic devices to prevent electromigrenic buildup, and since Atom has been designed as ground uo chip, that gives it an edge to those chipes that have acheived power efficiency through evelution, rather that transsistor-grassroots revolution like teh Atom