Performance Analysis of the Intel System Controller Hub (Intel SCH) US15W

The platform comprising the Intel Atom processor and Intel System Controller Hub (Intel SCH) US15W has recently been introduced into the embedded systems marketplace, for a wide range of uses. And with this pairing, Intel now has an incredibly low power (< 5W maximum thermal design power [TDP]) platform built on Intel architecture. This compares favorably to other platforms, such as ones based on Intel Core2 Solo processors, which have processor TDP's alone of 5.5W. Given the wide range of applications this new platform encompasses though, some design tradeoffs are inevitable. Performance is a notable tradeoff, and the performance of the Intel SCH is a good example to look at.