A source at Digitimes is reporting that VIA plans to have upgraded Nano processors ready late in 2009 and in early 2010.  Apparently the Nano 3000 series will be released in Q3 of 2009 and will add support for SSE4 instructions and dual-core Nano 3000-based processors should begin mass production in Q1 2010.  While this is definitely good news, we had really been hoping to dual-core processors from VIA much ealier than that in order to keep Intel’s line of products in check. 

As we saw in our looks at the VIA Nano technology, the processor core itself has some solid potential but VIA’s dependency on TSMC and other third-party fabs may be holding it back.

VIA Technologies has recently notified its partners that the company plans to launch the next-generation Nano 3000 series CPU in the third quarter of 2009, while engineering samples of a dual-core Nano CPU will be ready in the second half of 2009 with mass production scheduled in the fourth quarter of 2009 or the first quarter of 2010, according to sources at PC makers.

Engineering samples of Nano 3000 series CPUs will be completed in the first quarter next year. The CPU will be manufactured under Fujitsu Electronics’ 65nm process.

The Nano 3000 CPU’s specification is similar to that of Nano 1000 and 2000 with the major difference being that the CPU will support SSE4 instructions.

As for the dual-core Nano CPUs, VIA is currently evaluating either to use Fujitsu’s 45nm process or Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company’s (TSMC’s) 40nm process, added the sources.