VIA C3 (Ezra, Ezra-T) processors
Introduction: June 2001
Overview
The VIA Cyrix III/C3 was a family of x86 central processing units for Socket 370 personal computers, designed by Centaur Technology and sold by VIA Technologies. The different CPU cores were built following the design methodology of Centaur Technology.
The VIA Cyrix III was later renamed VIA C3, as it was not built upon Cyrix technology at all.
The Ezra and Ezra-T cores
The VIA C3 processor continued an emphasis on minimizing power consumption with the next die shrink to a mixed 130/150 nm process. "Ezra" (C5C) and "Ezra-T" (C5N) were only new revisions of the "Samuel 2" core with some minor modifications to the bus protocol of "Ezra-T" to match compatibility with Intel's Pentium III "Tualatin" cores. VIA enjoyed the lowest power usage in the x86 CPU market for several years. Performance, however, fell behind due to the lack of improvements to the design.
Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.