Vendors go to extreme lengths for new chips

As demand has grown for wireless communications and multimedia devices-including cameras, MP3 audio players, IEEE 802.11 wireless LAN base stations, and cellular phones-so has the demand for specialized embedded chips that can handle these products' need for data-intensive, fast, power-efficient, reliable performance. Neither communications nor the rendering of multimedia files tolerates chips that cause transmission delays and interruptions. At the same time, many of these processors must be energy efficient because they operate within battery-powered platforms. This makes traditional CPUs unsuitable in many cases. To meet the demand for a different type of processor, vendors are beginning to offer unconventional extreme chips.