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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?"
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..
I can't come up with any reason for the embedded market to inflate that significantly that quickly.
Plus, a typical embedded CPU is a Z80, a 6502 or a 68000 or StrongARM at most. There's absolutely no need for a PC-class processor for embedded tasks.
But cost of the CPU isn't the only reason. The Z80 (for example) is very well understood, it and the software running on it can be made very reliable. Applications for the Z80 can be written with minimal memory, because of its 8-bit simplicity, using a 32-bit processor would be using a sledgehammer to crack a nut. The embedded software community are quite conservative, and will good reason, consumer electronics (other than PCs) just can't crash without serious economic consequences. If you did need a 32-bit processor, it's likely to be a SPARC or an i386 (or the aformentioned 68000) for the reason that they're cheap, reliable and well-understood.
The embedded market is already large, but it is dominated by a few entrenched players who compete aggressively with each other. Good luck to Transmeta, but I don't rate their chances.
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
The Zilog Z280 was a 16 bit CPU, also adding a MMU, but mainly increasing the address space to 16Mb, with an internal clock quad, so it would run at 16Mhz on a 4Mhz bus.
Later still, there was the Z8000, which was also basically 16 bit, but had instructions to use its registers as 8,16,32, or 64 bit registers, and the Z80000, which was 32 bits internal version, but with the same basic instruction set.
Zilog's current product line include a number of variations on the above chips, designed for embedded systems with things like on chip ethernet, UARTS, real time clock, etc.
I can't come up with any reason for the embedded market to inflate that significantly that quickly.
This is so funny. I've noticed that the vast majority of people on slashdot don't even understand what constitutes the embedded market. Most people, if they think of it at all, consider "embedded" to mean handhelds and Tivos. Consider: routers, switches, DSL modems, DVD players, microwaves, robotic control, almost any modern car; basically anything electronic that does more than a simple task and isn't a desktop computer probably has an embedded processor in it.
I've got news for you: the embedded market already outnumbers the laptop market! It is estimated that for every personal computer (not just laptops) there are eight to ten embedded computers. When Transmeta mentioned that they expect this market to be bigger than the market for latops they were referring to their chips penetrating that market (ie, sales of their embedded chips will outnumber sales of their laptop chips).
If you're dealing with just PCs and servers, you're missinga an entire world of computers. And unlike the PC market, the embedded market is actually growing.
- j
First of all:
Sometimes you have to run other people's code, and you may not have control over what they targeted.
Second of all:
The cost of a ready built X86 CPU board is a fraction of the cost of a ready build board with the other chips.
Third of all:
For a low-volume house, the cost of building your own CPU board is rediculous.
Forth of all:
Most of your "designed for embedded" CPUs don't have an FPU. The embedded PowerPC, the StrongArm, and (IIRC) the SuperH and embedded MIPS don't have FPUs. If you need number crunching power, you need to go elsewhere.
Unfortunately, some of us work under all those constraints (also, time to market, availability of second sources, and such).
I suggest that if you are going to tell somebody with decades of professional embedded experience how to do his job, you should try to have a little yourself.
www.eFax.com are spammers
Note that the Motorola 82xx chips also have an FPU: a 82xx, is basically a CPU with host bridge and an interrupt controller, connect PCI peripherals on one side, memory on the other and you're done. Yes, I do PCB myself and I know that it's not that simple, but getting midrange performance at low power levels is rather easy.
I'll concede you that the FPU on the 82xx is not top of the line, but it depends on what your needs are. Besides that, the problem with these FPU is that you should avoid divides, which are slow and block the pipeline for too long. On the other hand, the fused multiply-add does wonders for polynomial evaluation and filtering (when you factor in power consumption, they are actually excellent) which should be the bulk of processing in embedded systems.
Finally, Motorola also recently announced the MPC5xxx series which include floating point and are truly embedded devices, at least if they continue in the vein of the MPC5xx series. Their clock frequency is rather low, however. But it may be sufficient for many applications.
FYI, I'm using old 603E in a data acquisition system and they work fine for what I do. The top CPU usage is around 25%, worst case (most of the time I'm well below 5%), but at least I don't need a huge power supply, fans on the processor (despite the fact that the system is installed in an observatory at high altitude, hence with rarefied air) and have much less disturbance than with an Intel or AMD chips whose power consumption changes by 50 watts in a fraction of a microsecond when they enter or exit power saving states. This last point is especially relevant since there is a lot of extremely sensitive analog electronics in this system and around it (did you ever chase the nanovolt, I'd bet not ?).
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?
ICP makes 3.5" size board with TM3200 400MHz and I'm sure it's much less than $700 you are paying. Go to part no WAFER-6820.