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Transmeta Claims Five Year Lead Over Intel/AMD
safariman writes: "An article on Yahoo news reports that Transmeta is claiming a five year lead over Intel and AMD. Does anyone else think this claim is a bit excessive? After all, Transmeta itself is not five years old. Besides, once an idea is public, it is a lot easier to copy."
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Me: Ok, so you are 5 years ahead of Intel, right?
Transm: Yes, that's right. And AMD.
Me: But this technology, you've only been working on it for less than 5 years.
Transm: Correct. We were ahead even then.
Me: Ok, so Intel decided that want to be like you tommorow, it is still going to take then 5 years just to get to the point you are at right now?
Transm: yes.
Me: What makes you so great?
Transm: Linus Torvalds. He made linux in less than 5 years, too.
Me: No no no. Linus only makes you famous.
Transm: Well, I don't see Linux Torvalds working for Intel, do I??
Me: Or AMD. That's not the point. I don't see why Intel is going to take longer than you to do something when they are bigger.
Transm: Ok, five years is a long time. Doesn't that impress you??
Me: No! It doesn't matter if you are lying!
Transm: What?? We really do have Linux Torvalds! That is not a lie!
I can't spell or type, but that doesn't mean I'm unusually stupid.
The quote this whole thing's based on says, ``For them to catch up, they would also need a software based approach. That means they would have to start from scratch and from my 20 years of experience, it would take at least five years to get a new microprocessor out the door."
Is anybody here seriously suggesting he is wrong to say that it would take five years to start from scratch designing a chip - especially when that's how long it took Transmeta? That's where the five years come from and I would have thought that's accurate. People have had decades to copy Intels X86 architecture (and several years for the Pentium and most of its guises) so if it was that easy there would be more alternatives.
Which means the question is the first point: do Intel/AMD/ARM etc have to use a design which implements software? Well, that I don't know. But considering the problems and delays Intel has had bringing the Pentium 4 to market there is evidence to say he might be right.
In the context of promoting his own company he's not making unreasonable assumptions.