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Transmeta Goes Embedded
quinticent writes: "An article at CNet talks about Transmeta's entrance into the embedded market. CEO Mark Allen is quoted as saying, "By this time next year, it could equal the notebook market." Wow, when can I get my hands on a cheap embedded Transmeta system to play around with?"
Yes, I said no.
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I've been playing around creating embedded ethernet devices... temperature sensors, stuff to control my homebrew beer rig..
check out the TINI stuff at
Dallas Semiconductor
$50-60 will get you a board you can play around with and put on you home ethernet lan..
Wow, when can I get my hands on a cheap embedded Transmeta system to play around with?
Wow, that's a good question... considering I seem to remember hearing Transmeta say, in the very beginning, that they wanted to make inexpensive, powerful, efficient laptops, etc., available for everyone.
Where are those computers? The Transmeta laptops certainly aren't any less expensive than your typical Intel/AMD machines. This is unfortunate.
Transmeta may provide the solution to this equation.
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They have pretty much failed to capture any significant chunk of the notebook market?
Even in the server arena those new low power 0.13u pentium III tualatin's compete very nicely in terms of performance and power consumption.
So has the hype finally been laid to rest?
Eventually if you poke enough times Chipzilla will wake, and thats exactly what has happened. Both AMD and Transmeta have to look at other markets to sustain their profits. AMD has flash memory, and Transmeta is now realizing it needs to enter a market other than the laptop market. I would not be surprised to see Transmeta leave the notebook market completely within a few years.
Simply put, their advantage over Intel in the notebook market is nearly gone, Intel simply did what they constantly do, get off their butts and release the products they should have already had out there, and at prices where they should have been.
If anything, Transmeta's best contribution to the notebook market was in forcing Intel to release superior products are reasonable prices.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
Big deal. ARM has been doing this for years. If you want a really powerful and cheap and power efficient CPU, check out the ARM line. And I'm not only talking about the StrongARM, although it is nice. ARM's are everywhere where you need good CPU power, but want to run it off a pair of AA batteries... Would Transmeta get all this hoopla if Linus didn't work there?
I realize transmeta is a poster child company for the Slashdot community, but they really haven't made a notable contribution to the industry since their creation. I can't help but consider this another pie-in-the-sky agenda for them to attempt, because I can't come up with any reason for the embedded market to inflate that significantly that quickly. Yes, technologically we CAN embed technology in a lot of items, but what benefit do the consumers gain from this that makes it worth their money?
When it comes down to it, especially in a recession, average consumers aren't going to buy something that doesn't make their lives better.
excellent.
but can it run Embedded Windows XP? Which requires the processing power of an Alpha (yet doesnt support it)
--donabal
Safety First Day?
My understanding is that embedded systems need more customization than your typical laptop. That's why companies like Tensilica can sell their design cores. Having a chip that relies so much on sw can be a boon for customization, provided that it is open enough (I'm assuming Linus took care of that). However, one of the reasons that so far companies have customized their chips is that they wanted to minimize the sw part for efficiency reasons. I wonder if this doesn't contradict the vision of cheap embedded systems for all...
"By this time next year, it could equal the notebook market," Mark Allen, Transmeta's CEO, said of the company's prospects in the market for embedded chips.
I wonder here whether he was talking about the notebook market for Transmeta's chips or whether about the notebook market at large. Note also here that their entrance into this market really amounts to nothing more substantial than 'marketing to' makers of equipment that uses embedded chips. When Transmeta first started trading there was so much buzz around it that the marketing seemed plausible. Now, after a precipitous drop in share price (yes, I own TMTA), and numerous fallen-through-supposed-deals with computer companies, and TMTA looking like it might be delisted in 6 months, this kind of hyperbole makes me suspicious. Why, if this market is going to be so huge, was TMTA *not* marketing to these guys in the first place ? What's wrong with their leadership that they did not initially target a market that seems like it fits TMTA so much better ?
I've been eagerly awaiting one of the Single Board Computer (SBC) venders to make a device with a Crusoe on it. I work for a company that makes embedded devices, and currently we are using a Pentium/MMX based system at 200 MHz. Even that CPU board sucks down about 25 to 50 watts, which is not good when you are trying to make a system that needs to run from a lighter socket (ca. 120 watts maximum, more like 80 under real conditions.) Plus, you have to get rid of that heat, which adds to the cooling burden, and the @#()$& CPU fans keep crapping out on us. This is on an industrial SBC costing about US$700.
I'd love to go to a Crusoe based system, pick up a few MIPS, and cut a few watts out of the power budget. Add to this the fact that the Crusoe has the North Bridge built-in, which reduces the size of the board, and you have a great win all around for us embedded types.
However, unlike the laptop market, x86 compatibility isn't as great a deal for us embedded weenies, and therefor the StrongArm XScale is an attractive option too. Transmeta had better make this a very compelling option.
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Cool, so in a year I can get a cheep curso chip to build my mp3 player for my car with. >:)= Soundas fun
my 2 cent plus 2 more
When you look at the specs of (or the hype, if you hold that opinion) the crusoe chips, it boggles the mind why they didn't push this this sooner. 'Runs on one AA battery', goes the sales pitch - perfect for the embedded systems which need a half-decent chip but need to conserve battery life (i.e. practically all of them)
A friend of mine was so hoping to use a Crusoe in his embedded web browser tablet thesis project back in 2000. Pity it was released too late for him :)
"Einstein argued that [...] God is not capricious or arbitrary. No such faith comforts the software engineer." ~ Brooks
Maybe you don't blink at paying an extra $100 for a fancier CPU for your home machine, but in embedded systems price is a huge part of the deal. If you can shave $1 off of a CPU then that that's a big difference when you're selling a $50 appliance. Transmeta's chips are even *more* expensive than offerings from other companies, so it isn't at all clear how they're going to go up against processors like the 8051, ARM, MIPS, and so on.
I'm not sure I really understand what direction this means the comany is going. what type of devices will they develop in the future? and does this mean they are abandoning ship on the crusoe?
Could Jesus microwave a burrito so hot that he himself cou
By this time next year, it could equal the notebook market.
They'll be selling, like, 20 chips a year now instead of 10!!!!
How many people can claim to have taken on both Microsoft and Intel??
What's not to like?
When in doubt, have a man come through a door with a gun in his hand.
As a stock holder of TMTA (ugh, lately :), I am a little concerned at their changing strategy. Generally speaking, changing business strategy so early in the game for Trasmeta speaks of trouble. It is especially difficult to come to market and try to play catch up with a product that's similar to what already exists, i.e. notebook cpu market. It is even more difficult to switch business strategies and succeed.
Having stated that, my opinion is that this company will end up succeeding. I have trouble believing that such talented individuals (Ditzel, Torvalds, Taylor, etc.) will end up falling on their faces. As a stock-holder (I bought in @$3), my worst-case scenario is that their technology gets bought by one of the bigger players (AMD, Intel). Best-case scenario is that they finally find a product that utilizes the competitive advantages of the Crusoe processor - whatever that may end up being.
Praying for the end of your wide-awake nightmare.
The Z-80A? A couple of years ago I was looking at embedded systems and the Big Name Chips were the 386/486, StrongArm, and Z80A. IIRC, the Z80A was a 32 bit Z80. The Z80 was what the Sinclair computer ran on, and some calculators.
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First it was ultraportables, then portables, then servers, now embedded?
Transmeta's abject lack of a business plan or any semblance of forward-looking pretty much guarantees that Transmeta can look forward to being embedded in the garbage heap of dot coms.
No doubt it was sexy technology, just not sexy or business savvy enough to overcome the big boys. Too bad.
Easy does it!
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Wow, when can I get my hands on a cheap embedded Transmeta system to play around with?
try here:
Crusoe-based PC/104-expandable single board computer
"I hope I don't make a mistake and manage to remain a virgin." - Britney Spears
I for one need my Laptop. I use it at work while docked, use it at home and use it at remote locations.
Compiling code, monitoring systems, working on spreadsheets, logged into Oracle applications and spotlighting several huge oracle databases.
I wouldn't want to do this on a crappy 266.
If you bought a 1.2ghz laptop you would see most come with dual nics, modem, infrared, 802b.11 support built in or for another 50 bucks. Not to push dell but i have 2 batteries, dvdrom, 2internal 10/100 nics, built in v.90 modem, and a large lcd screen at 1600x1200 with a fast video card that works great in hi-res/high color on my 21 inch monitor. I need the screen real-estate since i'm monitoring many systems or utilizing many windows. Hell i even have dual display when i'm at home which is great. That is the beauty of a powerfull laptop.
There are a ton of users who have to take there work home with them, and a laptop is the easiest way. Just because people are mobile doesn't make there work or productivity less computationaly stressfull and thus there is no reason for not having a comparible workstation for use.
And this is why I can justify reading /. at work. Thanks for the link.
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If this gets applied, it would make cyber clothes more of a reality, since the last thing I want to do is have huge battery packs in my pocketess.
Besides, It's cool for the winter...
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yes ARM arch is nice and well designed ISA
and yes transmeta have not got a hope in this area
(anyone with any experance in building real embeded systems knows you cant afford 16MB for code morphing or have the fact that it might not execute in 25 cycles )
but really Intel with StrongARM2 (aka Xscale) has the ropes nobody can licence this off intel so ARM's bussiness model goes out the window
and TI who just use ARM to get their DSP going well
(lets face it a phone is just a DSP and so is a MP3 player (watch out empeg))
both of these dont licence so the only thing that ARM has left is ARM7TDMI and derivertives + makeing up new extenions to arch + macrocells
yes ARM is nice but with Intel killing ST and the rest I dont see where any more revenue comes from for ARM the company
+ the fact that all WinCE XP will be Only ARM
(suspect that Intel cuddled up to MS and got them to see reason much like symbian)
just watch out for MIPS
(I saw a dual 64bit 1GHz on one chip which was nice)
and for SOC parts there is always the ex strongARM design team http://www.alchemysemi.com/
which seem to be doing very well with more on chip and lower power than StrongARM + can alter clock speed
lets face it MIPS is one of the oldies but goodies
regards
john jones
IMHO, the embedded market isn't as big as they claim. And if it is, why would anyone want x86 compatibility? The only use I can see for their current design is what it is doing now, Low power x86 compatible PC chip.
Personally, I would love to see how well the Crusoe goes running native code. The whole super-RISC VLIW architecture sounds a lot better than the x86 or even the PPC. Maybe they should try native BIOS AND a native Linux kernel. In fact, have everything possible native and leave the whole x86 'code morphing' bit for binaries you don't have the source for.
Another idea, since they are emulating/binary translating the code anyway, how big a job do you think it would be to have multiple virtual machines? Naturally they'd all need their own RAM but RAM is cheap. It could give dual booting linux with windows a new meaning!
Also, how easy would it be to add other architectures? I can see a PDA that not only runs Windows CE software but PalmOS stuff as well. Just some ideas, any of them feasible?
your best case is that they get taken over because they are not going to make any money when up against
ARM (intel& TI), MIPS (NEC, IDT, PMC) and PowerPC (IBM & MOT)
really its nothing more than fancy VLIW machine
in terms of selling it they have not got a chance outside of the low power x86 market
(where legacy apps need x86 otherwise we would use something else witness MS useing ARM and only ARM for the new WinCE XP)
get real they are screwed because they tried to use the best fabs to get one over on intel (TSMC fabs) and failed
regards
john jones
Transmeta realises its done nothing in notebook market and makes desperate dive for embedded market. ARM and TI described as "not worried".
Every little piece of Transmeta news gets broadcast as bible.
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But I work in the embedded systems sector. It's the plumbing of world industry, and it's not cool. There are a lot of factors when it comes to embedded systems, but the number one factor is "cheap." Systems must be built cheap. (I'm ignoring reliability and other factors for the sake of the argument.) That means 486's and Pentiums, not the bleeding edge of 2GHz cool chips. Code is written in assembly, C and uncool languages, not Java and Perl. OS's include VxWorks, pSOS, LynxOS and DOS. Not cool ones like OS X, XP, etc.
My point is that it's nice for Transmeta to get into the embedded market, and I hope that they do well, but the "that would be cool" posters don't have a clue about how to make it happen, and neither will statements by Transmeta CEO Mark Allen, like "by this time next year, it could equal the notebook market." This industry is dominated by players that have been there for 30+ years, and if Transmeta wants to make a mark--as it seems they must if they're going to stay alive--they better have a pretty compelling offering in the works.
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Can a Transmeta chip emulate a Java VM and run Java byte code natively. Or is Java byte code not low level enough.
Transmeta has a low-power product which they want to sell at a premium that solves the x86 compatibility problem. If they can stay alive long enough, they have an architecture whose performance they hope to scale and compete on pure performance.
The embedded market needs low-power, but is a low-premium, high volume market where people are willing to rewrite applications to the chip. Therefore it lacks the premiums that Transmeta wants, and lacks the requirement for x86 compatibility which is their greatest strength.
Similarly, and ironically, Linux doesn't help Transmeta any either. Linux is a highly portable OS with a lot of useful software which is readily ported along with it. This undercuts Transmeta's interest in marketing to people who need x86 compatibility.
Therefore until they can achieve competitive x86 performance (which was their original goal), their best target market is long-lasting Windows notebooks. Because they are tied to end-user Windows, they need to run on x86. Because they are notebooks, battery life is a requirement. By luck the business market can pay top dollar, so they can get a good premium.
As much business as the notebook market? That isn't saying much - the cost per CPU is much, much lower in that market and the margins are much lower.
How bad is Crusoe? It's so bad that Transmeta is the only CPU company that won't release industry standard benchmark results.
Okay, so it's low power, big deal. How much performance does it have? Intel has low power chips too, and the SPEC numbers are widely available.
I heard IBM signed up to take a BUNCH of TM processors and then was so disappointed in the performance that they wanted to return them all. The deal was "we won't say anything about the performance if you just take them back".
I want TM to do well. There needs to be more competition against Intel. But I have no tolerance for vendors who play the smoke and mirrors game. Pretending that they can compete against PIII level performance is just plain dishonest until they pony up the SPEC results.
This is the same reason RLX hasn't released any SPECweb numbers yet.
Sounds like they are trying to get into the same area as the ZFLinux chip.
Has anyone seen any power consumption comparisons between the two?
Actually, I do (well, I personally don't, but folks on my team do). My gizmo does RF from DC to 3GHz, down to -120dBm, so noise is a concern. I'm guessing you do image processing, and are looking at a CCD, so you can at least bandwidth limit your signal. Wish I had that luxury.
Could be worse. My brother worked on CCD gear that would be fried by an ESD of 35 volts. LHe2 cooled, fun stuff.
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Around a $1.30.
As high $50 last November.
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Mark Allen is quoted as saying, "By this time next year, it could equal the notebook market
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And this is the CEO? Without a clue about embedded market *real* size? (already many times that of laptop). Transmeta has no hope, then...
TransMeta; Please put up a page for ideas. I think that you will find that there are a number of software developers with good and cheap ideas who would like to simply get some small hardware built. I realize that many of the ideas would be rejected out of hand, but several may not. All it takes is one good idea to propel you to the top.
HP and IBM do not seem interested in it, but I'm hoping that you would value the ideas from the OSS community.
The Lippert CoolRoadRunner ][ has a 300mhz cyrix mediagx, isa/pci, eide, cf, vga, audio, serial, parallell, and 10/100 ethernet and pulls less than 10 watts. It isn't cheap at $560 a pop though.
burris
This is one loser company. They've only got two clients, both Japanese companies that only sell their laptops in Japan. So what do they do? Try to shift their chips to embedded systems. This is their final shot at the big money, since there's no other market left for their chips. Probably another failure since the embedded market is pretty full right now.
This was demo'd at the Crusoe launch, but was not intended as a product. I don't know the current status of any Transmeta products related Java - does anyone else?
hahaha! What a clown. The embedded market is already massively larger than all laptops combined! (think how many people own more advanced watches, pda's, newer automatic cars, etc)
I think he means _his_ dweebie little embedded systems matching his dweebie little laptops in sales, in which case, I'd hope so for the sake of transmeta staying in business. Those things don't sell for squat.
go ahead and mod me down for saying something Against The Company Of Our Saviour (haha!), but it's true
Depends on the embedded device, but some of them can't use the ARM, MIPS, or PPC because of commercial offerings NOT being there for those architechtures.
ARM's very nice, but it's not the end-all-be-all solution to embedded systems.
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