AMD Allies with Transmeta

respect sent us an article about AMD aligning with Transmeta, which isn't that surprising since everybody who is not Intel should be busying aligning with anyone who is also not Intel. My favorite quote "The industry has been gradually moving toward a 64-bit architecture [From 32 Bits], which multiplies the amount of data the processor can access by four". Rock on CNN!

Comments

Three words: Time to market.

[slothbait]

First of all, AMD isn't making a fuss about this. Slashdot is making a fuss. AMD just made an announcement, and anyone who follows knows that they make several such announcements a week.

But the reason that teaming up with Transmeta is appealing is that Transmeta can offer them a processor that acts like a Sledgehammer well before they have silicon for the part. Software simulation of modern microprocessors is ridiculously slow, particularly when you are upping the word length from 32 to 64. However, writing a code-morphing layer on top of Transmeta's chips means that they can have a near-native speed chip before the design is even finished.

Being able to run tests at near-native speed, pre-silicon means that AMD can overlap software development with the hardware development, which could buy them months of development time. In this business, time to market is of overriding importance. And a shorter time to market is what AMD wants out of this alliance with Transmeta.

--Lenny

You WANT to see consolidation?

[electricmonk]

everybody who is not Intel should be busying aligning with anyone who is also not Intel.

I don't know about you, but from what I've seen in every other instance, Slashdot vehemently opposes industry consolidation and mergers (witness AOL/TW and MS). I guess less competition is only bad when you don't like the company.

Oh well, I guess the enemy of my enemy is my friend. That one always works. Just look how it's helped the U.S. Gov't in the last half a century.