Itsy



The Compaq WRL Itsy is a small, powerful platform for mobile computing research. Its features include a clock-throttleable StrongARM processor, 8Mbytes of flash memory, 64 Mbytes of random access memory, a serial port, a gray-scale display, and a touch screen.  The processor clock can be varied from 30 MHz up to 200MHz.  At the highest clock frequency, the processor is rated at approximately 220 Dhrystone MIPS.  The Itsy runs the Linux operating system, weighs about 120 grams, and consumes less than 1 watt.   We have ported the Sphinx speech recognition system to the Itsy. In addition, we have developed a PCMCIA card adapter, ported the Linux PCMCIA Card Services software to the StrongARM, and ported the Lucent WaveLAN/IEEE driver for wireless LAN applications.

The Itsy's StrongARM SA-1100 enables research in varying the CPU clock frequency to reduce power consumption while meeting the performance expectations of the user.  The low-level code to vary the clock frequency has been added to the Linux kernel, and investigation of techniques for clock frequency control at the OS, application, and user level is underway.


Last updated on 14 Dec 1999