Transmeta Introduces The Efficeon

brentlaminack writes "Information Week and others are reporting on Transmeta's new Efficeon chip. 1.1 GHz, 7 Watts, 1MB cache, 130 nanometer technology. A marked improvement over their previous generation. Let's hope they can capitalize on this before Intel starts filling the same niche. Looks like a nice product, Linus and Co." Update: 10/15 00:22 GMT by T : woobieman29 writes "Looks like this is a good day for high-efficiency processors. Hot on the heels of Transmetas announcement of the Efficeon, VIA Technologies has announced the release of it's latest low-power processor, the NanoBGA EDEN-N. Capable of running at 533MHZ (4 watts), 800MHZ (6 watts), and 1GHZ (7 watts) this appears to be a very good fit for Thin Client and other embedded devices. One really interesting feature is the on-chip Padlock security suite incorporating AES encryption."

Comments

fp, yo

[Anonymous Coward]

This first post is done using Transmeta processors, the world's fastest and kinkiest as everyone knows.

Why does Slashdot keep covering Transmeta? Since Linus doesn't work there anymore, isn't it just one of the Intel wannabe's, like VIA and Zilog and Microchip and stuff?

Re:fp, yo

[jir0]

Actually, Transmeta does deliver pretty okay products. Yes, I know, you'll say with processors, Intel pretty much beat them up after releasing the low-power Centrinos. But they were actually one of the first guys to go for in power-efficient processing. They did mobile computing a lot of good. The very first laptops that really caught my attention were the low-power Crusoe-run Twinhead notebooks. 6 hours on 300 MHz was pretty amazing a few years back. They still do nice jobs now and then (see a nice article here). I still drool over the Fujitsu Lifebook P-series, most of which run on the Crusoe. I for one go for portability as the first priority for laptops. (I can always just ssh into my main box if I needed anything other than emacs.)

They also have a number of impressive cluster servers. Again, having low power consumption is making their high-performance servers look good, even among today's Blades.

Any innovations are still welcome. At the very least, it's nice to know there are projects who keep Intel working on new ways to be better. :)

Now about that silly name...

Slashdot editors are on crack (what else is new)

[illumin8]

Today we have two stories that about new processors that are about to be released. The Transmeta processor, while an incremental improvement, is nothing to really get excited about. The Clearspeed chip is simply vaporware.

Yet the one real story that is actually interesting "News for Nerds" was rejected by the Slashdot editors.

Sun Microsystems today announced it's roadmap for Throughput Computing. Remember how Sun has been talking about putting multiple cores on a single chip? Well, systems will be shipping in early 2004 that offer twice the performance of current top-of-the-line Ultrasparc IIIi chips. By late 2004, they will offer three times the performance. Coming in 2005, the second generation of this technology will offer 15 times the performance of current Ultrasparc IIIi technology. The roadmap extends to generation 3 (no date yet), which will offer 30 times the current performance.

This is way beyond Moore's Law and actually news that I want to read insightful Slashdot comments on.

With the anti-Sun bias the Slashdot editors show I guess I shouldn't be surprised...

[sarcasm]
Vaporware and anything having to do with Linus Torvalds' old employer are ever so more important than something that will radically change the computing landscape over the next few years.
[/sarcasm]

Linus & Co

[chabotc]

Small correction on "Looks like a nice product, Linus and Co". Linus has moved to OSDL, so for now it's just & Co.

Is the cache pre or post code morph

[metalhed77]

I'm curious if anyone knows this (I know nothing about chips). But do transmeta processors use the cache to cache code before or after it has been code morphed? I saw the large cache and assumed that must be the reason as it would seem that increasing the amount of code that need not be recompiled would probably help out the transmeta chips quite a bit

Re:Nice, but unfortunately...

[mocm]

Considering that the Centrino was Intels answer to the Crusoe and the Efficeon is Transmetas answer to the Centrino, you would expect that Transmeta will still be a player in the tablet market. Don't be surprised if the next HP tablet will use Transmeta again.
Here you will find a list of Efficion products.

Re:trasmeta processor plus mobo

[Mattsson]

I'd rather use the VIA EPIA-V mini-ITX C3-533MHz.
They've got more powerful versions of this, but those require a cpu fan.
This one only need a passive heatsink. =)
If you add a ide->compactflash converter and use one of their fanless 55w psu's you've got a machine with *no* moving parts.

Re:Excuse me?

[illumin8]

... are you seriously maintaining that the release of a white paper (ie: "We plan for our next generation of computers to be EVEN FASTER, woo!") detailing a series of products with no ship dates attached is much more important than a product that has actually shipped?

I guess I should have included news sources in my links, because there sure are a lot of them.

All sarcasm aside, your point is well taken. I like the article on the Sun site because it explains more about how the technology works than any of the news sites, but it seems that Slashdot editors are much more likely to accept a story if the link points to an "impartial" news source rather than a press release. Thanks for the tip.

The Efficeon (god, what an awful name) and the new Eden are both real products that I can now order in batches of 1 or more.

Actually, neither one of those products have shipped:

From Via's press release:

The VIA Eden-N processor is sampling now and is expected to start appearing in secure networking, entertainment and communication devices in Q1, 2004.

From Transmeta's press release:

... the Efficeon processor family will be competitive with, or outperform competing microprocessors operating within critical thermal limits such as the 7W limit for typical fanless notebook designs. Systems based on the processor are expected to begin shipping in the fourth quarter.

Two Places To Look

[istartedi]

First, try BWI.com. There you can various types of boards that use the Transmeta CPUs (though Efficeon is probably not there yet). The most reasonably priced ones are made by Wincomm; but for some reason they aren't linked off BWI's main site any more. Last time I looked, I was still able to get the listing of Wincomm products by using their search function. Some projects such as the CharmIT wearable computer were based on the Boser HS-1600 board, which seems to be a popular choice. It costs something like $800-$1000. I have no idea why the things are so bloody expensive. Bear in mind that you are usually getting built-in memory and LCD controllers, video, sound, etc. It's almost a complete system. You still need a power supply, keyboard, mouse, and monitor. Also, the chip is soldered to the board, so it's not a true CPU-mobo solution. Clips for the Crusoe do exist, it's just that the board makers haven't used them. I seem to recall having stumbled across one, but it was by a manufacturer that's not well known and I lost the link... Sorry. Oh, I almost forgot the best thing about BWI: They quote prices for onesies and twosies right there on the website. No need to call sales. What a refreshing approach!

The other site is All American There you can actually get Transmeta CPUs, but without a mobo to plug them into this is only of interest to you if you license the reference design from Transmeta and contract for the fabrication of your own boards. Technicly that's not nearly as daunting as it sounds. With the proper files, you can usually send these things off to be prototyped for not too much money, and of course volume production is even cheaper. It's just that the startup cost is high--licensing from Transmeta, and expensive proprietary packages to manipulate the designs if you want to customize them.

It's rather ironic that Linus is associated with a company that throws up so many barriers to hackers. And I'm saying this as someone who owns Transmeta shares and is disgusted with the way this is handled, but I'm just like the guy on teh commercial who "owns Nike". My stake is so small that nobody would listen to me. So I vent this stuff on Yahoo's finance board, and sometimes here.

Re:Two Places To Look

[TPFH]

I remember durring California's rolling blackouts, weren't there some people blaming the internet; ie increased computer usage (instead of fraud) back then? Anyway, I remember thinking about the Crusoe chips and maybe it would make sense to build low power consuming desktop PCs.

And you don't need power companies shutting down the power stations for fraud to motivate this. It is about time we start thinking of efficiancy in all walks of life. Yea, there are people that will actually use the power of a 2ghtz PC, but even those people might want to have a fileserver running ML Donkey 24 hours a day without turning their computer room into a sauna.

I just got on the p2p bandwagon this summer (yea, I'm late but whatever) and my computer room is in the basement and normally cool year round. This summer it was between 80-90 degrees most of the time.

I imagine the cost for the motherboards is in that they are not being mass produced. Well, maybe Transmeta ought to think about marketing these at companies and home users looking to reduce their electric bills.

Question: If you were to do parallel processing or clustering with transmeta chips would you get more bang for your electrical buck?