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?"

Comments

embedded is SWEET

[TechnoVooDooDaddy]

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..

Re:Embedded?

[sql*kitten]

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.

where to get one:

[gtx]

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

Re:Y'all still using

[gorilla]

The Z80A was actually the chip that the Sinclair systems had, a higher rated version of the Z80. It was actually rated for 4Mhz, but Sinclair underclocked it to either 3.25Mhz (ZX80 and ZX81) or 3.5Mhz (Spectrum) because it saved on a seperate clock chrystal. The original Z80 was a 2.5Mhz chip. Later Z80 variants were the Z80B (6Mhz) and Z80H (8Mhz), and the Hitachi HD64180 added a MMU to support paged memory.

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.

Re:Embedded?

[iso]

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

Re:You and me both, brother...

[wowbagger]

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.

What about ZFLinux?

[certsoft]

Next year, the San Jose, Calif.-based company will come out with an inexpensive system-on-a-chip that fuses a processor, a chipset and a graphics chip as well as a new high-performance version of Crusoe, said Dave Ditzel, Transmeta's chief technology officer.

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?