The Casio notebook, which will compete with Toshiba's Libretto and NEC's Mobio, represents the first Japanese PC company to incorporate the MediaGX, a National spokesman said. Earlier this year in the United States, Compaq announced a sub-$2,000 notebook with an earlier version of the MediaGX with MMX technology.

The National spokesman declined to disclose the voltage or power-dissipation specifications for the new version of the MediaGX, saying only that it will consume 75 percent less power than Pentium-based notebook processors and 50 percent less than older versions of the MediaGX. The new processor may owe its reduced-voltage characteristics to National's new 0.25-micron process, which will start to ramp up in high volume at its South Portland fab this month. The company would not reveal the processor's cost.

The x86 processor integrates a PCI controller, graphics processing and system logic on the same chip. A companion chip provides PCI-ISA bus controller, RAMDAC and interface functionality.

While desktop PC sales have faltered in Japan, sales of notebooks are still growing at a fairly rapid clip. "We believe this new version of the MediaGX processor will create a new wave of innovation in the fiercely competitive mobile-computing market, which is showing outstanding growth," said Tatsuo Ishihara, president of National Semiconductor Japan, in a statement.

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