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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..
Transmeta may provide the solution to this equation.
Money for nothing, pix for free
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.
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.
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.
www.eFax.com are spammers
Would Transmeta get all this hoopla if Linus didn't work there?
I am pretty certain they wouldn't get as much hoopla here if Linus didn't work there. Linus could run a company selling gas chambers to neo-Nazi groups and the crowd here would be talking up how the code determining gas mixtures was open-source.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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?