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Portables Hardware Technology

Moore's Law for Motherboards 170

Posted by Zonk from the soon-they'll-be-skull-implantable dept.
An anonymous reader writes "VIA CEO Wenchi Chen revealed a business card-sized motherboard billed as the 'world's first industry-standard form-factor for PC/phone convergence,' at Computex this week. The mobile-ITX" board measures 3 x 1.8 inches. It's half the size of pico-ITX, which was half the size of nano-ITX, which, in turn, was half-the size of mini-ITX — which was already small. It's not clear whether VIA will make these tiny motherboards available to end users, or if they will only be sold directly to device makers, but generally all of VIA's tiny motherboard formats have spread around to other suppliers and become widely available."
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Moore's Law for Motherboards More

Moore's Law for Motherboards

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  • I for one... (Score:5, Funny)

    by TheSHAD0W ( 258774 ) on Thursday June 07, 2007 @01:18PM (#19425849) Homepage
    ...welcome these new business cards. Just go to a trade show, collect business cards, and build a Beowulf cluster out of them!
    • Do you know that this is the very first time that I've ever smiled at a fucking Beowulf joke?

      Up until now I would have liked to add a comment filter that hides any message with the word Beowulf in it, but then I would have missed this one and I would have been poorer for it.

  • Is that a motherboard in your pocket... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Ngarrang ( 1023425 ) on Thursday June 07, 2007 @01:19PM (#19425863) Journal
    ...or are you just happy to see me?

  • My favorite caption in a long time (Score:5, Funny)

    by arootbeer ( 808234 ) on Thursday June 07, 2007 @01:19PM (#19425865)
    From the first picture of the motherboard:

    Via's mobile-ITX board prototype
    (Click to enlarge)

  • Yawn!! (Score:1, Interesting)

    by Wizworm ( 782799 )
    Wake me when they have an equivalent System on a chip.

  • How big? (Score:5, Informative)

    by thesolo ( 131008 ) * <slap@fighttheriaa.org> on Thursday June 07, 2007 @01:21PM (#19425877) Homepage
    That's 7.62 cm x 4.57 cm, for everyone reading this who isn't American.

    Please put all smart-ass/pro-SAE comments about the metric system below this post, thanks.
    • What size are business cards in the rest of the world?

      • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

        by thesolo ( 131008 ) *
        Business cards tends to vary between a few different sizes, usually depending on from which country the card came.

        The international standard size is the same as a credit card, which is 85.6 mm x 53.98 mm. It's defined by ISO 7810, ID-1. Oddly enough, the US uses that sizing standard for its credit cards & drivers licenses, but not for business cards.

        The business cards my Italian relatives have given me from Italy are always in a slightly different format than international size, they're instead

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by kisielk ( 467327 )
          Yeah. I found it annoying that in order to fit in to my binder I had to trim all of the business cards I had collected in Japan because they were just slightly too tall to fit in the plastic sleeves.

    • Re:How big? (Score:5, Funny)

      by $RANDOMLUSER ( 804576 ) on Thursday June 07, 2007 @01:48PM (#19426253)

      That's 7.62 cm x 4.57 cm, for everyone reading this who isn't American.
      Wow! that's only 3.48234 × 10^-7 hectares!
    • If anyone is still having trouble imagining the size of that thing, think of it as ten AK-47 bullets placed next to each other. HTH.

  • Cool (Score:4, Insightful)

    by KnowledgeKeeper ( 1026242 ) on Thursday June 07, 2007 @01:21PM (#19425885)
    I can't wait. Now I can finally make a powerful wearable computer. Now just to find someone who makes LCDs that look like glasses for a reasonable sum of money and I'm off to a wonderland :)

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by DrunkenTerror ( 561616 )
      You're never getting laid.

      • You're never getting laid.
        Which explains the need for a wearable computer and LCD-monitor eye glasses. Just add the tactile glove that was advertised a few months ago and voila! Second Life can take on a whole new level of addiction.
    • You said "powerful" about a VIA product...

      Are you feeling well? Maybe you should get some rest, have a doctor take a look at that bump on your head.

  • I want some... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Stanistani ( 808333 ) on Thursday June 07, 2007 @01:21PM (#19425887) Homepage Journal
    Imagine building itty-bitty robots...

    Or digital picture frames...

    Case-modding an Altoids tin...
  • Where things get smaller and faster every year! Amazing!

    The same technology that allows us to fit hundreds of millions of transistors on a chip allows us to build a tiny botherboard the functionality in a few custom asics and processors. And so it goes.

    The only reason this is "impressive" is because Via is the first company to show it off as if it were sexy. The industry has already been producing small, PCI bus motherboards [pc104plus.com] for years.
    • Too bad the board connectors will be still have to stay the same size unless you have nanofingers too.

      • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

        by default luser ( 529332 )
        Yup, we're reaching the size limits regarding standardized, interchangable interfaces.

        Thankfully, we're already tossing out electrical connections for low-speed I/O with the introduction of Bluetooth, ad there's the portential for making high-speed I/O wireless with beefy 802.11n and later revisions.

        The big problem is power. Power is going to kill innovation in the wireless devices field unless we can come up with some impressive storage capacity improvements. You can improve the efficiency of the transmi
    • The only reason this is "impressive" is because Via is the first company to show it off as if it were sexy. The industry has already been producing small, PCI bus motherboards [pc104plus.com] for years.
      right: 133 mhz maximum processor speed and no mention of price (which i'm guessing means its very expensive) and maximum 256 megs of ram. I can't find a price but i suspect it is not cheap.

      what via did was release smallish (though not tiny at least in the intial generation) boards that could run current versi
  • Where is the power supply? Where is the storage? What is the processor? How much memory ... etc... Small computing already exists. What we need is less shitty small computing.

    Get a processor in the MIPS rating of say a 500MHz AMD K8 processor on a credit card device, with self-contained power, decent memory [say at least 128M], etc. Then we'll chat.

    Until then my Gumstix 400MHz ARM with 64M of ram will do fine for small time computing [albeit slowly...]

    Tom

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by TheThiefMaster ( 992038 )

      Where is the power supply? Where is the storage? What is the processor? How much memory ... etc... Small computing already exists. What we need is less shitty small computing.

      Get a processor in the MIPS rating of say a 500MHz AMD K8 processor on a credit card device, with self-contained power, decent memory [say at least 128M], etc. Then we'll chat.

      Until then my Gumstix 400MHz ARM with 64M of ram will do fine for small time computing [albeit slowly...]

      Tom

      From TFA:

      The mobile-ITX board that Chen demonstrated this morning appears to be based on a 1GHz "C7-S" processor -- apparently a standard Via C7-M shoe-horned into a 9 x 11mm package. The chip had not previously been announced. The mobile-ITX board also apparently uses an "S" (small) version of the CX700 integrated north-/south-bridge chipset. And, it appears to have an on-board DC-DC converter. Additionally, according to Via, the board includes a CDMA baseband processor chip, suggesting that the mobile-ITX board could be used as the basis for x86-compatible smartphones.

      According to a brief item at EpiaCenter, Via's mobile-ITX board will be available with 256MB or 512MB of RAM soldered on-board, and will run Linux or Windows XP Embedded. Even an embedded version of Windows Vista may be too much for the little board, however, a Via spokesperson admits.

      • VIA processors are not known for their serious ALU performance. Granted it's cool that it has ram, but the processor sucks. What about flash storage? And there still isn't power, a battery or AC adapter would add to the size don't you think?

        I mean my computer is no bigger than an a couple inches square. That is if you disregard the mobo, memory, PSU, case, disk drives, etc...

        Tom
        • Come on, dont act like an asshole.

          In you first post, you mentioned a 500 Mhz k8 to be ok, and 128Mbyte ram to be fine.
          After the GP showed that its a 1 Ghz VIA (they are about compareable to an half speed k8), and 4 times as much ram as you demanded, you suddenly paddal back just to be able to futher nag around.

          And btw, ALL performance is ALU. Where else should it come from. No need to use big words (or acronyms) in show how intelligent you are. You are not going to fool anybody anyway.

          • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

            by tomstdenis ( 446163 )
            I'd like to point out that a 500MHz AMD K8 is capable of way more MIPS [and FLOPS] than a 1GHz C7 core.

            Clockrate != performance or did Intel's P4 escapades not teach you anything?

            Tom

            • arrogant? (Score:3, Interesting)

              by StewedSquirrel ( 574170 )
              OK.... lets look at your claims and your gripes.

              1) The C7 core runs a full speed in-order ALU and FPU. Unlike the C3, where design constraints required a half-speed FPU, this one has it at full speed. The ALU has a full 24 cycles to complete simply 32 bit operations (should only require 4 cycles, at best). Let's not even mention the 64KB 4-way associative L1 cache with only 3 cycle latency. Even at 1Ghz, this would indicate to me that the clock speed is not, in fact, ALU bound, but more likely FPU or
              • erm... ok well #1, I misread.

                seemed to think i read that you claimed the clockspeed was limited because of their ALU and then... meh

                still, #2 is worth pointing out. The performance of the chips has stepped up since the core was originally dubbed "C3".

                that's all.

            • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

              by epine ( 68316 )
              You have a peculiar definition of "way more". The claims I'm familiar with is that the C7 performs comparably to a Pentium III at half the clock frequency, except on many cryptographic benchmarks, where the C7 outperforms the Pentium III by more than a factor of ten. My recollection is that the K8 is a highly optimized three-issue design (decode and retirement rate limited to three instructions/clock), whereas the Pentium III is a middle of the road three-issue design (more interlocks and stalls, more unn

              • Re: (Score:2)

                by chthon ( 580889 )

                Floating point does not matter for low-power tasks.

                What I would like to use these things for is as a small gateway server that can be powered 24/7, and that does routing, fetching of e-mail, POP3 (or something similar) and proxying.

          • And btw, ALL performance is ALU. Where else should it come from. No need to use big words (or acronyms) in show how intelligent you are. You are not going to fool anybody anyway.

            Uhm... perhaps it would come from the cache? Or the FPU? Or from the memory controller? Or from the bus speed?

            The ALU is the "Arithmetic Logic Unit" which performs some of the basic integer mathematics and some parts of memory addressing and simple comparisons, but very little else.

            There is plenty that goes on, such as branch pr

        • Re:while it's cool (Score:5, Insightful)

          by drinkypoo ( 153816 ) <drink@hyperlogos.org> on Thursday June 07, 2007 @02:05PM (#19426535) Homepage Journal

          VIA processors are not known for their serious ALU performance. Granted it's cool that it has ram, but the processor sucks.

          What the processor doesn't suck is power. Low power consumption FTW!

          What about flash storage?

          It must have some, but they haven't figured out how much. But you're right, if it doesn't have a slot, it's pointless.

          And there still isn't power, a battery or AC adapter would add to the size don't you think?

          Has a DC-DC power supply, so luckily, all it needs is the battery. Batteries are getting pretty small these days.

          I mean my computer is no bigger than an a couple inches square. That is if you disregard the mobo, memory, PSU, case, disk drives, etc...

          This IS the mobo, memory, and psu. It probably has onboard flash, and if it doesn't already, it will almost certainly have some type of SD slot.

          • What about flash storage?

            It must have some, but they haven't figured out how much. But you're right, if it doesn't have a slot, it's pointless.

            I believe this device has USB. I would recommend the KingMax SuperStick 4GB [kingmaxdii.com]. It's 4 gigs, and it's smaller than a single stick of Dentyne. I have a couple and my VIA systems boot from that just fine. It may require some rework, of course, but you would expect to customize something like this.

            • If they support MiniSD, then you can get 4GB in something the size of a fingernail. MicroSD will let you have 2GB in something half that size (I have a 512MB card in my RAZR, you could sneeze and lose the damned thing if it was on your hand.) If they're making a phone with so much processing power, they will almost certainly include memory expansion. ("They" being either VIA, or whoever actually builds a phone around it.) The whole idea of this thing is that it could go in a range of devices anyway; I could

              • MicroSD will let you have 2GB

                Soon eight. No kidding. [i4u.com]

                Wow. Ain't progress fabulous?

                With a read speed of 16 Megabytes (MBs) per second and a write speed of 6MB/s, Samsung's 8GB microSD card well exceeds the Speed Class 4 SDHC (Secure Digital High Capacity) standard

                Darn, that's for mid-2008 production according to engadget [engadget.com].

                Verizon and Samsung jointly announced a 4GB MicroSDHC for May 1 2007 release, but I can't find it.

                Anyway, performance on these systems will be more than sufficient for regular office w

    • TFA says it comes with 256MB or 512MB on board. It discribes the processor fairly well too. Its a sized down Via C7-M. The OS is embeded and I imagine what little else will be held in flash memory.
      • Here's my first suggestion for what to do with this thing. I want a handheld (something the size of an battery-powered face shaver or large cell phone) written language translator. On the out-facing side is a mini-scanner and on the other side is a graphics LCD screen.

        Suppose you are in some place where you can't read the language (it does happen in the age of 500-seat 6000km airliners). You get a newspaper, wave the scanner over the text, and within about three seconds, the scanned writi

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by HTH NE1 ( 675604 )
          Another feature would be a built-in microphone with a program that has been trained to your voice so that you can speak into this mic and have your words translated into the written form of the local language and displayed on the LCD.

          Great, so now I can have it read, "I really like urinalysis" in Japanese.
        • I wish we had *any* computer today that could do the things you mention, if it cannot be done in a supercomputer forget about the handheld thingies.

          The problem is that both language translation and voice-to-text need a full understanding of the context. Any spoken language has so many different interpretations that it's useless to try automatic processing without full artificial intelligence. A classic example used in AI courses is "he saw that gasoline can explode". This sentence means either "he realized

          • This argument is absurd. In the real world, one can use gestures and rephrasing of the sentence to get the intended meaning across. We need a cheap and reasonably reliable communication device for real-world real-time situations, not something that can translate literature or pass academic worse-case situations.
            People who say we need an AI supercomputer to handle basic language translation needs have probably never been in a situation where they have been completely isolated from everyone b

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by _Quinn ( 44979 )
              The problem is that gesture recognition is a difficult problem in computer vision to begin with; using it to materially aid the translation process is at least as difficult a problem as spoken-language contextrual translation, and for the same reason. The real hope for cheap/fast/small translators is some sort of interactive device: the classic solution to hard AI problems is to make the human do the work. The device asks about if it recognized the sentence ("Did you write "The bathroom is in the volcano"
        • Reread your description and price again.

          An iPhone:
          Handheld, large cell phone size
          Out facing camera
          Inside LCD screen

          Take a picture of a newspaper, OCR it, submit it to Google translations or some other website, and within three seconds (assuming a network connection) you get an English translation.

          Has a built in microphone; speak into it, and assuming wifi or cell, you can have a 'live' translator reply via chat in English text.

          Cost? $499.

          You won't see what you are proposing (which requires easily 10x more p
  • This could be a nice node for building city-wide mesh networks. :)
  • How I hope they make this available to consumers. It opens a very intriguing possibility - making your own linux cellphone.

    Think about it - completely customisable UI, thousands of possible plastic cases (I imagine many 3rd party case manufacturers will spring up), second-to-none music and video support, and the ability to use or port millions of existing linux apps.

    Maybe in a couple of years time you'll be able to buy a bunch of cellphone parts at radio shack, and assemble them into a custom phone as is cu

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Alioth ( 221270 )
      This kind of device is completely unsuitable for a cellphone - it uses far too much power and makes far too much heat. There are already devices out there that would work MUCH better (like small ARM-based devices). You can already buy the chips to do GSM and roll your own cellphone, and you have been able to for some time. The people at Sparkfun Electronics have already done it (and put it inside a rotary dial phone, complete with a proper ringer, and the electronics to turn pulse dialing into the commands
    • you might already be able to do that.

      i think you can make your own computer into a cellphone if you get a certain type of adapter, like the ones this comany [falcom.de] sells. i think you just need to get a SIM card and plug it in. and you'll need to find/write some software, i'm sure.

      and gumstix [gumstix.com] makes a variety of very small linux computers.

      now you'll need some type of interface thing. not sure about the hardware, but you could find something that works with qtopia [trolltech.com]

      granted, $10 says the end-result doesnt f
    • Funny... there is already Linux PCs with completely customisable UI, thousands of PC cases... and unfortunately, second to Windows/Apple in terms of music and video support.

      Somehow I don't see a losing formula on the desktop suddenly becoming viable when you change form factors.

      The iPhone and it's ilk are still going to rule the roost, I think.

  • Been around for a while... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by gillbates ( 106458 ) on Thursday June 07, 2007 @01:46PM (#19426213) Homepage Journal

    The embedded world has had complete computers on "motherboards" this small for quite some time. Check out gumstix [gumstix.com] sometime.

    The fundamental problem with PC based motherboards has always been heat dissipation and interface connectors. Heck, the back panel of my desktop uses more area for the connectors than exists on this board. There are processor heatsinks bigger than this thing!

    PC's have always been about cheap computing power, not low power dissipation or form factor. I remember a time when the power of your desktop was considered commensurate with the size of the box - we had friends putting regular motherboards into server towers so they could "impress" fellow geeks.

    Not that I would mind x86 in the embedded world, but it seems to me that this is going nowhere fast. The problem isn't technical - it's business. Most embedded systems run some sort of ARM variant, which would mean that code would have to be ported to x86. Furthermore, there's no way this would make it into a cellphone - primarily because of the fact that it is x86, and the carriers are adamantly opposed to the prospect of the consumer being allowed to run unauthorized code on their cellphones.

    Linux already runs on the ARM, and you still aren't seeing a proliferation of ARM-based general purpose computers. While this would be nice for a sub-notebook, the problem is that sub-notebooks, while a personal favorite of mine, typically have not done well in the marketplace. Consider the HP Jornada, which was discontinued after a few short years. And it seems today that that trend is toward larger, not smaller, laptops.

    • Re:Been around for a while... (Score:5, Informative)

      by drinkypoo ( 153816 ) <drink@hyperlogos.org> on Thursday June 07, 2007 @02:01PM (#19426457) Homepage Journal

      The fundamental problem with PC based motherboards has always been heat dissipation and interface connectors.

      Various companies like Advantech have long sold expensive PC motherboards (sometimes with soldered cpu, sometimes socketed) that are dramatically smaller than the average. Most of the connectors are on headers, and you can use them or not, as you see fit. For example many people will never need serial or parallel connections - while others will never need USB. Their systems (the only ones I ever researched much) come in sizes ranging from PC/104 (which is to say, same size as a PC/104 card) to 5.25" storage device size (approx. footprint.) And some of them will run on automotive voltages, making a picopsu or similar unnecessary. But they are damned expensive! If VIA brings out a truly teensy motherboard it will fulfill a need I am currently experiencing - the need for a full PC that will fit into an ISO DIN slot. I have the entertainment system part in the car already, now I need the navigation/vehicle monitoring system to finish up, and I don't want to spend the $750+ it would take to get decent horsepower from one of the classic SBC-providing companies.

    • I think the x86 is more appropriate for "vanity" systems than embedded systems. Vanity systems have about the same form-factor and hardware complement as a PC but with a higher price and the the bragging rights to say "we designed it ourselves".

      Of course, true embedded systems aren't general purpose computers with a smaller form-factor, they're special purpose systems targeted to implement a specific function. In these systems, an X86 doesn't integrate enough hardware to be very useful and some X86 feature
    • Running x86 doesn't automatically make a processor consume more power. How about them out of order execution engines, huge caches, multiple pipelines, etc...

      Tom

    • Not that I would mind x86 in the embedded world, but it seems to me that this is going nowhere fast. The problem isn't technical - it's business. Most embedded systems run some sort of ARM variant, which would mean that code would have to be ported to x86.

      The driver for smaller x86 boards is home media PCs and similar applications. For that, people want small, silent, AND powerful enough to handle video codecs.

      But even without those, a portion of the general public wants small and quiet PCs. Dell, HP, Ace

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by smellsofbikes ( 890263 )
      >The fundamental problem with PC based motherboards has always been heat dissipation and interface connectors.

      And the fundamental problem of things like gumstix is that they're very good for one specific function, the one for which they were designed, but if you want to do something outside that, you run into a wedding-cake-like pile of add-on cards to get the functionality you wanted. Take gumstix. I might be wrong, but my reading of their USB technical specifications says that this is a device intend

      • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

        by alegrepublic ( 83799 )
        Linksys has two systems that can be used as a general-purpose Linux computer: NSLU2 and WRT54GL. I use both on a regular basis for a variety of tasks, such as Webcams, remote voice intercoms, asterix PBX, and, of course, for their original purpose too: file serving and network routing/bridging. The USB port in the NSLU2 is very useful not only for disks but also for all kinds of peripherals. I also use the slightly more expensive WRTSL54GS, which includes a USB port along with 3 network interfaces (two wire

    • Most embedded systems run some sort of ARM variant

      You're forgetting embedded PowerPC chips, and entire families of 8 bit and 16 bit chips which are still in widespread use throughout the embedded world. You think it takes a 32 bit chip to drive a discman? What about dumb cellphones, I can garuantee that almost none of those would use a 32 bit chip, the almost is because invariably some products end up over-engineered.

      The word PC is vastly over-used since it used to mean IBM PC Compatible (x86). This

    • Linux already runs on the ARM
      it does, sort of.

      only one of the major linux distros runs on the arm and even with that its been looking pretty dicy for a while, i'm surprised arm made it into etch. The debian arm port also leaves a lot to be desired. Its floating point performance sucks on most hardware because they compile for a FPU that is not in most arm boxes and use kernel emulation on machines that don't have it. The ABI they are using makes it very hard to switch away from this (some people are doing a
    • "the problem is that sub-notebooks, while a personal favorite of mine, typically have not done well in the marketplace."

      That might have to do with their being too expensive for most users. Paying more for less is not always popular.

  • Pictures and more info at TR [techreport.com] and specs at VIA [via.com.tw]

    Touchscreen?! I'd prefer a WS in there and do away with the "Dock", and then a PCCARD slot for expansion, but anyhow..

  • I had a via mini-itx 533MHz system for a while. It didn't even perform on the same level as an equivalently clocked p3 despite all the advances made in the intermediate time. While these might be cool for carpcs, they probably won't be good for a small desktop.
  • business card-sized motherboard

    The first order was placed by one Mordecai Sahmbi.
  • Wait a min... it's smaller than a Motorola RAZR? Could this be the next motherboard for the iPhone? Native x86 MacOS X on said phone anyone?

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Alioth ( 221270 )
      No it couldn't - it uses far too much power and makes far too much heat (the fact it needs a heat spreader is a dead giveaway - a mobile phone device must be efficient enough not to need to dissipate heat at all).

  • the homebrew market (Score:5, Interesting)

    by blhack ( 921171 ) on Thursday June 07, 2007 @02:02PM (#19426481)
    Can anybody even imagine how amazing it would be if cell phone networks became like wifi? You pay a monthly fee for access and you're on. Devices like this motherboard would really really open up the possibility for a homebrew-cellphone market. What would be very interesting to see is cell phone carriers become more like ISPs. You get some bandwidth from them, and you get to use it for pretty much whatever you want.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Alioth ( 221270 )
      This device isn't suitable for a phone - it uses far too much power and makes far too much heat (the heat spreader sort of gives this away). Better suited ARM based devices have existed for some time. You can roll your own cellphone already (with efficient parts). The people at Spark Fun have already done it (making a rotary dial mobile phone) - and you can also get the chips there to make your own phone.

      http://www.sparkfun.com/commerce/categories.php?cP ath=96 [sparkfun.com] - The Port-A-Rotary
  • Whether for phones or other, a stateless PC is a terminal, now AKA "Thin Client" or "Internet Appliance". Information is stored on a server elsewhere, accessible everywhere.

    I like Xterminals, but I'm a dinosaur and remember the Real Thing: terminals that did X and you could log into the networked machine[s]. Sort of like a VT220 doing graphics. They ran BOOTP (iso DHCP) and TFTP to boot.

    Now you'd want boot from flash and DHCP. The minicomp would be a small box like a SohO router with SVGA out (only 2D re

  • ... we'll have mobile phones that can do almost everything that a desktop machine can, except with different display options. However, this development will not have any real meaning unless broadband flat-rate data connections also become available for them. Unfortunately, whether such a magical future ever comes to be is up to the telecom industry, and knowing them I'm not holding my breath.
  • Watch your step, I just droped my motherboard!

  • powers of 1000, not 2 (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Russ Nelson ( 33911 ) <slashdot@russnelson.com> on Thursday June 07, 2007 @02:44PM (#19427219) Homepage
    They're going to run out of prefixes pretty quickly, since they're usually applied to powers of 1,000 rather than 2. And whatever happened to micro? milli (okay, mini), micro, nano, pico, femto, atto. I don't think there's anything past atto.
  • that makes how many watts per square inch ?

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