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Crusoe As Server CPU

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the interesting-approach dept.

rxmd writes "Heise has an article on Transmeta's Crusoe processor being used as a x86-compatible server CPU by companies such as rebel.com and RLX (read their press release on the project), supporting Linux as well as other "established operating systems". Basically, it's about the Crusoe's lower power consumption and temperatures enabling server manufacturers to put more processing power into the same amount of space than with Intel or AMD cpus. Interesting that a CPU designed for mobile applications should find its way into the server market."

1 of 90 comments (clear)

  1. Not this again... by slothbait · · Score: 5

    > Seems to me that it'd be pretty cool to write to the native Crusoe architecture rather than going through the x86 ``emulation''. Does anyone know if it's even possible to bypass the emulation at all, and write native machine code

    Just about every Crusoe posts comes standard with one or two of these questions. Actually, I don't know the answer, but I expect it is *not* possible to write to the "native" ISA of the Crusoe chips. In so doing, you would be circumventing important architectural features of the chip, which operate in their ultra-low-level ISA emulation software.

    But most importantly, even if you could, they do not *want* you to. Their code-morphing software also performs some optimizations, which would be thrown out the window if you went "native". More importantly, though, native could would be irrevocably tied to *that implementation* of the Crusoe. Transmeta is under no obligation to build the next Crusoe with the same ISA, and probably won't. Since they are emulating another ISA, the physical architecture is only seen by their software, thus they can tweak the architecture as much as they like between revs without having to worry about breaking binary compatibility. As any design engineer knows, this is a Thing of Beauty, and a luxury no other company is allowed. If people started programming native, they would lose that luxury.

    So, while writing straight to the Crusoe silicon (if possible) may be fun as a hack, it would not result in maintainable software. Moreover, it is in Transmeta's best interests to discourage such behavior

    --Lenny