Transmeta To Release Next Generation CPU

CodeShark writes: "According to this story at CNN, Transmeta is set to release their new TM6000 microprocessor this afternoon. The chip apparently incorporates some of the functions usually provided by high-performance (and high price!) chip sets. Transmeta is reporting a further reduction in power requirements by 44% and sees the laptop and sub-laptop markert as the primary markets for their new CPU. Intel and AMD claim to be catching up with the Transmeta chips in terms of power requirements, I'd be curious to find out what the real world comparisons might make of those claims ..." If anyone out there is at Microprocessor Forum, please say in comments any further details that are made clear there.

Comments

Announce, not release

[Lemur catta]

Transmeta is set to release their new TM6000 microprocessor

They're announcing it, not releasing it. Production won't begin until the second half of 2002.

Do they have the patent?

[the_2nd_coming]

If they did have a patent on coupling software with hardware to emulate registers on a CPU then I would think it will be very difficult for Intel and AMD to follow suit and come up with a equaly power and heat conservitive solution with just plane hardware, unless a new technology in solid state and integrated electronics had been discovered.

Re:Do they have the patent?

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually doing a low power processor is not rocket science. There are certain trade offs on power/speed when you design a chip. Intel/AMD are optimizing for speed.

Hitachi has done that a few years back at 1mW/MIP on their SH4 series which was supported by Windoze CE. ARM & MIPS take a bit more power.

are AMD and Intel full of it?

[hexix]

I'm curious about what information AMD and Intel have to back up their claims that they're catching up to Transmeta in power requirements.

I just got a toshiba laptop earlier this year with a 700mhz celeron. I love it but I rarely use it without being plugged into the wall, as from my experience it only lasts about 2-3 hours.

I remember seeing stuff saying a laptop with a transmeta chip can have a battery life of about 8 hours.

Assuming that is true, how could Intel and AMD possibly say they are catching up? I mean mine is a celeron, not even a pentium III or anything and it sucks up power like I would have never imagined. I hope Intel isn't talking about their powerstep technology, that is just a freaking joke.

Anyone with more information on power consumption among the different chips, I would think Transmeta would have tons of information about this since it's really their main selling point isn't it? I better go check their site.

Re:are AMD and Intel full of it?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd be curuous to know what the WA rating is on your laptop battery. I have an I book with (IIRC) a 42 watt*hour battery.. My machine lasts about 2 hours playing diablo over airport, and 3-4 hours while doing office type stuff, and playing mp3s half the time. The maximum watt usage as reported on the bottom of my computer is 42 watts, meaning that on average, it's using far less than that (even for doing hardware-compute intesive things such as games). Either the other components of your machine are sucking the juice, or the Celeron uses far too much energy. I vote the latter, because lower price machines are also known to be lower quality. That implies higher energy usage. My p-150 Compaq has a 42 WH battery, but lasts 1/3 the time (idling) my apple does when playing games. Probably means a bad battery. So, there could be many meanings to the time your computer runs...

Transmeta only good for power consumption?

[BrookHarty]

I thought the key selling point for transmeta was the way it could optimize the CPU for certain tasks. The programs you run get faster after you use it a couple times.

Is all that Transmeta just about power consumption now?

Comments at the Register

[sien]

As is often the case, the Register has some really interesting comments on this story here. Apparently this release has a lot of market control and damage control related to it. There is a class action suit going due to previous claims of high speed chips. Anyways, read the Register article for more details.

Transmeta is a sad joke: Where are the numbers?

[Anonymous Coward]

Transmeta refuses to release any industry standard benchmark results for their CPUs.

Ask them. If you get something other than FUD back, please post it.

Why won't they run the SPEC int and FP tests??

They try and hide behind low power claims and can spin FUD with the best of'em. Low power means absolutely nothing unless you know how much WORK it can do.

They will give you benchmark results only if you sign an NDA and promise not to tell anyone how slow their chips are. Most companies who sign the NDA decide not to use their product. What does that say?

I'd really like to see these guys compete with Intel/Rambust, but I have no respect for companies built on FUD, regardless of who is involved.

This is offtopic

[_typo]

Now that we're into low power consumption, how does an iBook rank against the competing SR line from Sony or equivalent PC stuff in terms of battery time?

The G4/G3 processors are suposed to be more conservative in terms of power and all else should be standard laptop hardware. How do these compare to the Crusoe?

Data? Opinions? Anyone?

Re:This is offtopic [No, it's not :) ]

[timothy]

I have a 2001 iBook. Apple claims 5 hours of battery life; I've never gotten more than 4:10, and usually closer to 3:40. I do like the machine, but ... 5 hours would be a lot nicer, and considering the marketing, also a lot more honest. I'm going to be buying a 2nd battery, but don't kid yourself -- the 2nd battery will make it more acceptable, not as outstanding as the brochure says. Caveat emptor, etc etc. (Yes, set to maximum battery savings, too.) The airport card doesn't seem to change the battery life either direction, either; I was afraid that it would make it noticeably worse, but hasn't, and having it built in is nice enough to be worth a (moderate) battery life cut anyhow.

Besides not getting 5 hours (ever), the battery meter (at least under OS 9.1) is pretty jumpy, changing times pretty strangely, sometimes up, sometimes down.
When Mandrake 8.1 is ready for PPC, I would like to see what sort of battery life it gets.

timothy

What I'd like to see!

[GauteL]

Part of the deal with the Crusoe-chips is that they do "code-morphing" and morphs x86 instructions into something the crusoe can handle.
What if the crusoe chip could do the same to PowerPC-code?
Imagine dual-booting MacOSX with Linux x86 and Windows.
Now, that would be interesting, (and probably not something Apple would like).

Is VLIW no good?

[marm]

One concern that goes through my mind when I look at the not very stunning performance of Crusoe is the effectiveness of VLIW (very long instruction word) processors.

Both Transmeta and Intel have bet that VLIW processors are the way forward. Intel's Itanium and Transmeta's Crusoe are both based around the VLIW concept. Transmeta hides the VLIW nature of Crusoe behind the 'Code Morphing' software that allows the chip to be IA32-compatible - Intel's IA64 architecture gives compilers raw access to the VLIW nature of the processor, and has (very slow) on-chip emulation of IA32.

Between them, they make up the only commercial VLIW processors around, and both are very poor in terms of performance compared to more conventional modern processors, whilst at the same time introducing some enormous obstacles to overcome - IA64 requires some very major changes to the way compilers work, and Crusoe requires major extra complexity in the form of the Code Morphing translation layer.

I don't wish to jump the gun, but I think this means things don't look too bright for the VLIW concept. Evolutionary enhancements to conventional RISC/CISC processors appear able to continue Moore's Law for many years yet. AMD has outright rejected VLIW for its future 64-bit strategy (x86-64) and none of the other major CPU manufacturers seem to be jumping on board either.

Have Transmeta and Intel made a very large strategic mistake? VLIW looks good on paper, but is it effective on a practical level?

It will certainly be interesting to see what happens with future Crusoe and IA64 processors.

New low powered Laptop

[Grumpman]

What I want to see is a laptop with no hard drive, just one of those solid state RAM drives mentioned earlier (too lazy to look up link - don't need the karma). That would draw less power than a Hard drive, yes? Anyone got numbers on how much?

Power consumption question

[jriskin]

Can anyone give a rough breakdown the typical power usage by subsystems in a laptop?

The drive, fan, and HD info is available. What about the rest of the parts?

Display, backlight, motherboards, CPU, etc...

Anyone already done the research?

TM6000 PCI Daughtercard

[The_Dougster]

I have been researching the construction of PCI daughtercards, which are essentially Single Board Computers, but designed to be peripherals somehow controllable over the PCI bus.

As a kind of example, suppose the card was assigned a frame buffer address of memory, and reprogrammed to implement OpenGL transformations. Or perhaps load it up with Distributed Net, or a Quake server, or whatever.

Maybe, say, take a PCI ethercard, and modify it, adding a Crusoe processor, ramdisk, couple external connectors. Then the card acts like an ethercard which is connected directly to the embedded system. What I can't find is any documentation about how to interface the chip withought signing up as a Transmeta Developer Associate Member from an Approved Business Partner :-)

NEW! FEATURED Add your own mini-linux server, req'd: 1 PCI slot... NR

Transmeta has its uses

[steveha]

It's true that other parts of a portable can draw more power than the CPU: the display is a huge drain. But it's still useful to have a low-drain CPU.

I would love to have a Crusoe laptop that was as small and light as a NEC MobilePro: no moving parts, just a lot of RAM and some flash memory. Put Linux on it instead of Windows CE. Put in a Lithium ion battery. Give it a PC card slot so we can put in a 5 GB hard drive card if we want. It would rock. Sure the display would suck more power than the Crusoe, but why make the situation worse by going with some other CPU?

steveha