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Transmeta Closing Up Shop
Ashutosh Lotlikar wrote to mention an article on the Business 2.0 site stating that chip producer Transmeta is going out of business. From the article: "The company's Crusoe family of microprocessors promised lower power consumption and heat generation, enabling the creation of laptops with longer battery life. Critics bashed the chips for being underpowered compared with Intel's latest and greatest. Transmeta struggled to find a market, and recently it sold off most of its chipmaking business for $15 million to Culturecom Holdings, a Hong Kong company better known for publishing comic books."
They're still working on putting out a chip based on LongRun2, which reduces transistor leakage. This is very important for cutting power consumption and increasing CPU speed. They've also licensed the technology to Fujitsu, NEC and Sony, none of which have released a product based on it yet.
It's quite possible, though apparently unlikely, that Transmeta will turn things around and manage to survive. However, Intel is already all over the leakage problem, so this may well be the end of Transmeta.
How am I supposed to fit a pithy, relevant quote into 120 characters?
Who?
And the Intel deathstar approached...
I wonder what would have happened if Transmeta had released the instruction set for the native VLIW instruction-set processor that runs the x86 emulation layer. Sure, it's probably very hard to code for, but may have offered a tremendous advantage for some applications.
Also, hopefully OQO and others have a backup plan so this doesn't put a kink in the handheld pc market.
HIV Crosses Species Barrier... into Muppets
Aren't you forgetting AMD's Jem'Hadar soldiers too?
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If Transmeta does close shop, I hope they consider opening up their "Code Morphing Software". It's an interesting approach to X86 processing on non-X86 processors, for more info check here: http://www.transmeta.com/crusoe/codemorphing.html
Sadly, PS/2 was yet another victim of USB, which doesn't care what you plug into it, the electrical slut.
The whole architecture was build upon the premise that the core is only accessable via the code morphing software, so the different crusoe chips hadnt even binary compatible cores.
HI O WISE PRINCE. WHT TOOK U SO DAM LONG?
Linus Torvalds works for these guys now.
How am I supposed to fit a pithy, relevant quote into 120 characters?
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Torvalds' employer is OSDL. He left Transmeta years ago.
I was just wondering what will become of their code morphing technology especially in light of the rumors of Apple potentially going to X86. Could be interesting if Apple had a chip that could do X86 and PPC at near full native.
The more you know, the less you understand.
Generally, bash is superior to python in those environments where python is not installed.
The Transmeta CPUs have the highest MIPS/Watt ratio of all, still. Laptops built around them have the longest battery life, and superclusters with Transmeta CPUs have some of the highest processing densities and lowest power consumption - characteristics that may not be an obvious advantage for customers in need of raw power, but that certainly lower the bill when you factor in the power needed to dissipate the extra heat, and the price of real-estate.
I will be the first to admit: I was sceptical when Transmeta started publicizing their ideas. I thought employing Linus was just clever PR. Yet, as time went on, I thought a Transmeta-based laptop would be a very desirable item. I hate it when laptops burn your lap, don't you?
Sigged!
The other day I was fiddling with a laptop that had dual 2GHz processors or something like that. Ehh? I mean, it's great that they can cram all that into a "moderately" small package, but still, you need Nomex pants to use it in your lap.
That's not a laptop; that's a portable workstation.
Critics bashed the chips for being underpowered compared with Intel's latest and greatest.
These sound like the same guys who insist Apple is going broke every quarter since '91, can only survive by going x86, etc.
Does the tech industry have more trouble than most w/ utterly clueless people who set themselves up as experts? John Dvorak is still getting published and invited to conferences; so-called analysts make silly statements, Wall Street listens, and everybody (but the analyst) suffers. Crusoe probably got "reviewed" by some moron who gave it a bad rating because it runs at less MHz than the IT guys told him his laptop does.
Transmeta had some good ideas, too.
Yeah. But they'd be a better analagy than say a Borg Cube since that would fit Intel more.
And you gotta love the Might Morphin' Power Changelings
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This type of news, especially in the chip business reminds me of "Cyrix" - the chip, in the mid/late 90s! In the chip business, it must be tough to be a newcomer. Texas Instruments manufactured some of these, IBM did too and a host of other companies. Some people still believe this chip still has advantages over the pentium! http://www.hardwarecentral.com/hardwarecentral/rep orts/592/2/. But who is buying that? No wonder, Transmeta may be forced to see the real world. I wish them luck though. All in all, the chip biz must be tough.
Transmeta has enough cash to sustain itself for at least a year. I doubt that they will just sit around and watch it disappear.
The headline was irresponsible. It implied that Transmeta was shutting down today. A lot of good and bad things can happen in a year, but that's future stuff, and as such is undecided.
Transmeta can restructure, find VC funding, be bought up by another company, license it's technology to a deep pocketed partner, release a new product and watch it take off (or fail), perform massive layoffs, cutbacks, etc. Headlining that they are closing fails to take into account the money they have and the time they have.
"Where can I buy one" was what I thought when I first heard about Transmeta's processors.
I don't need a laptop. I want to put one into a PC. VIA makes a similar sort of low-power product, and you can actually play with those.
Transmeta made some inroads into the laptop and supercomputer markets, but there was just no way for normal people to play with one, except by buying a laptop.
Forward, retransmit, or republish anything I say here. Just don't misquote me.
It's an interesting thought ...
Intel optimised the performance of Just-In-Time compiling for Java straight to x86 assembly language. And at the same time, Intel also designed the Pentium processors to convert x86 instructions into internal processor instructions. What if Java were compiled directly into internal processor instructions?
Vintage computer adverts: http://www.vintageadbrowser.com/computers-and-software-ads
Everyone who has a vested interest in maintaining the 'status quo' will try their darndest to repress, discredit, and sink anything that threatens them, regardless of the benefit to the average citizen.
The inverse is also true: the more a new technology benefits the average citizen, the more opposition it will encounter.
Of course, this only serves to tell the enlightened among us what to check out and buy. If there's lots of people talking trash, there's more often something to it than not.
People hate change.
> Culturecom Holdings, a Hong Kong company
> better known for publishing comic books
It's about time comic books started containing chips so portions can be animated and with story line updates that are downloadable, if you ask me.
Fascinating. This is the first time I've pulled out my Fujitsu P-1120 in two months, and slashdot was the first place I went to to make sure I was connecting OK, and what do I see. Sigh. I feel bad for all the folks that will never have the opportunity to buy a P1120. All signs are that Fujitu won't be making a replacement with all the same features, namely:
1. The clearest screen I've ever seen on *anything*
2. TOUCHSCREEN!!!!
3. Size of a small hardcover book
4. Weight of a small hardcover book
5. Runs *cool*
6. Runs forever on battery power
7. No fan, silent except for the hard drive
8. Built in Wifi & Ethernet
9. Etc., etc.
10. Very nice, *useable* keyboard
Heck, I'm thinking about buying another one to have in case my current one ever breaks!
The older folks here may remember the teeny little laptop that HP came out with in the early '90s with the mouse that popped out from the side? I never bought one 'cause I figured they'd eventually come out with a faster model, and then HP just discontinued it. I always berated myself for not buying one when it was available. So when the P1000 series came out, I bought one, even though I really could have used the money for a lot of other things at the time. Two years later, I'm still convinced it's the best $1100 I've ever spent. I don't need a laptop that often, but when I *do* need one, it's the most convenient full featured, yet smallest laptop ever made.
The only downside is that it needs a bit of tweaking before it can play full screen videos, but it *can* play them, and that's all that matters. It's also well supported by Linux and has it's own forum
When they came out, they definitely had the best MIPS/Watt for x86-compatible chips. I bought a Crusoe-powered laptop back in 2002 (Fujitsu P-series). It routinely got over 10 hours of battery life with the screen at full brightness and over 20 with the screen closed listening to MP3's. With the original batteries, it still gets 6-7 hours with the screen, and 15ish with it closed. It also doesn't get uncomfortably hot, and also has builtin wifi drawing power.
I've never seen an Intel-powered laptop that could come close to that. Granted, it is a dog (and was even then), but a similar Intel-powered notebook draws more power. If you were to scale-back Intel's current offerings to match the speed of my laptop, they'd probably beat it in MIPS/Watt. However, at the time there was nothing comparable.
If nothing else, Transmeta will have prodded Intel and AMD to make more power-efficient chips.
Your empahsis this in order to convince people that this deal is bad?
I think quite the opposite, because I know Culturecom pretty well.
Culturecom Holdings, under which they've companies sells comics books, publishing press and magazine; they also manage properties, and they also have a technology company, which releases its own Linux distro (China 2k) for use in their line of Linux specific workstation and terminal server selling to China since 1998. Their distro originally released for office use and now porting to embedded system. Buying transmeta's production line is a sensible and wise choice for a proactive technology company devoted to Linux business like Culturecom.
I don't know others, but I feel good to hear that a company devoted to Linux business since boom still around and kicking and decided to enhance their Linux business.
Disclamer: I worked for Culturecom even before they started their Linux business.
This is a field where you must not only have a good product, you must also have a solid market AND a solid marketing team, AND you must avoid bad PR like the plague, AND any major players (like Intel) must not deliberately sabotage efforts to compete, AND your plant can't be struck by major earthquakes.
(Why are all the major chip makers in Taiwan, Japan and America ALL concentrated in areas with high tectonic activity? Is there something in the fault line they use in the production line?)
The bottom line is simple. A chip fabrication plant can cost tens of millions to hundreds of millions of dollars, skilled chip designers can command hefty salaries, many of the key markets are 0wn3d by monopolies of questionable legality who flirt with unethical practices to keep their position, and software developers reinforce this by targetting established, high-volume platforms and that means no new products get support.
Of course, Transmeta didn't help its case. Its Linux distro was late, the first batch of chips was buggy, they didn't sell to anyone outside of the "big players" (and "big players" only really buy from other "big players", because volume bought and sold = profit), and they only produced an 80x86 layer for the Crusoe, rather than using the capabilities to cross market boundaries and therefore create volume by getting into many niche markets.
Also, their design was poor. Intel beat them on power consumption in a very short space of time, and this is Intel we are talking about. At the same time, people knew there were problems with 80x86 scalability (hence the work on SMP and hyperthreading), but Transmeta didn't look far enough ahead to build a multicore product, when they were already building a design from scratch and had ample opportunity to make such changes.
(In comparison, AMD and Intel have to engineer such features into an existing design, which is always much harder and likely to be much slower than working from first principles. AMD's and Intel's route also offers much better odds of bugs being found in the design, at a later date, as their architecture was never intended to be multicore.)
So, I don't hold Transmeta blameless in this. They may have been pushed over the edge, but they still chose to walk along the cliff in the first place, knowing it to be a dangerous spot, and knowing that the view wasn't even that good there, to make it worth the risk.
One of these days, I hope to see a company start up that takes the time to be truly innovative (and not just fake it), takes the time to get things right, and makes a product so damn unbeatable it wipes the floor with everything else.
It does happen. True, AMD is no start-up, but they were hardly giants in the 80x86 world. With the Opteron and their 64/32-bit crossover architecture, they've demolished Intel's Itanium and even convinced Microsoft to switch to them for 64-bit stuff. Given the longevity of the Wintel duopoly, that took a good plan and a good effort.
Any start-up could do just as well, or better, because it wouldn't have the legacy hardware to build around. They could do a clean design that merely supported legacy code. Transmeta started down that road, but for some reason chose only to camp a little way down it and go no further.
The "ideal" processor would work just as well as a CPU, GPU, network processor or processor for a disk array, as then a manufacturer can go to a single vendor, buy in even bigger bulk, and save money on all aspects. Your computer would become a Beowulf cluster, in effect, with specialization in software. It would be cheaper to build, and would mean that the same system wou
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
FWIW; I'm an embedded firmware and hardware developer amoung other things, and HAVE worked with their hardware:
I evaluated transmeta's chips in 2003, I think.. it was for a target product that needed a low power consumption. When we got their development kit and the heatsink was huge, I knew they were in trouble. I KNEW they were in trouble when we tried to return the multi-thousand-dollar kit to look at some other options they had.. and they wouldn't listen.
If you're working in the embedded world, you're probably in a well defined area:
- Low power, low speed micros. These are usually under 20mhz, sometimes faster. Cost a couple bucks and have everything under the sun integrated. Some have micro RTOS's developed for them, most don't. This market is mature and owned by people like Atmel, Microchip, Zilog, and a hoarde of other people making variants of chips like the 8051. Transmeta didn't stand a chance there. Those chips consume almost no power at all and cost nothing.
- Midrange micros for pdas and other appliances. This is where I thought transmeta had a chance, but then along came Intel with the XScale architecture and they made it work and work very well. This, not the pentium M, is what killed them I think. XScale is cheap, well supported, and very low power.
- Above-midrange; Transmeta might have had a shot here, but their power consumption and support was much worse than the x86 compatible Nat Semi Geode (now owned by AMD?), and offerings from Via (C3 MiniITX). Price? No competition.
- Notebooks. Pentium M ended this one. So did the G4 chip from Motorola.
- Desktop high end CPUS. Nobody ever expected them to be competitive.
Looking back, it seems like their market ran away from them whereever they looked. Unfortunate, but not unforseeable IMO.
..don't panic
Sun's MAJC: dual core VLIW FP monster...gone
Transmeta: also VLIW...going
Intel: Itanium VLIW FP monster...stagnant once HP's base converts from PA-RISC and Alpha
It seems that no VLIW architecture to date has really been successful against PowerPC, SPARC, and AMD64. Is it the compilers? Too nontraditional?
Let's see, since I actually worked at Transmeta up until about 2 months ago and I still know the guys who work there, I'm pretty confident in saying that they are NOT out of business!
As far as I know, they are still churning out silicon. I don't know where Business 2.0 gets this trash.
BTW, their chips are pretty competitive now. It's a bit late, but you never know.
.. or the reporter at Bussiness 2.0 doesn't know his bussiness..
Here's one little tid bit that will put those of you who invested at ease.. Transmeta is the one doing the design for the Cell processor.. yeah that amazing thing. Yes, for the Sony PS3.
Check back in a year.
Now move along and get a better story to read.
-- Robi
its really sad to see a company fall which took an alternative approach to processing. Hope that their technology don't get forgotton.
(Now I see why Rob Malda says slashdot could be dying. A swamp of americans shouting, screaming and spitting without knowing what's going on. Americans. Heh.)
Culturecom truely is a company most known for its comics business. But it has deep pockets, and is also known to buy this and that business, extract the most money out of it within 1 yr or 2, then leave users dying in the cold. Its 'chinese2000' is one of the best known "Linux distribution" in Hong Kong, and one of the ugliest.
- First version is an incomplete rip of redhat. What is incomplete? Even trademarks / logos are not completely replaced! Redhat sued it later and it has to pay lots of money.
- Next version is another rip, seemingly from (at that time called) mandrake. Between these 2 versions, their bundled office are not compatible!
- No more. No 3rd version. Users either accept the fact that there is no security update, or just format it.
And one of the saddest is that, it hired one of the oldest and most respected open source pioneer in China, yet didn't produce anything really useful.
There are still good companies in Hong Kong, but not this one.
I'm no longer convinced. I worked on the internals of a Fortran optimizing compiler for a VLIW machine -- nearly 20 years ago!! -- so I do have some understanding of the issues.
Seems to me that we've had plenty of time to produce VLIW compilers of adequate quality. Any VLIW/EPIC-chip vendor would naturally try very hard to ensure all potential developers (including 3rd-party and FOSS developers) had easy, even free, access to such compiler. Otherwise, what's the point?
Yet, VLIW just keeps failing to capture anything beyond a niche market. Why?
I think it's because it really wins only for a relatively narrow range of chip technologies, die sizes, and application needs.
Mainly, once you compile your code to a VLIW target, you've committed it to run efficiently on a very specific number of available registers, a particular narrow range of memory latencies, and so on.
So if you run that same machine code on a newer, "bigger" CPU with more registers or faster (or even different-latency) memories, your highly optimized code is suddenly stuck running in a suboptimal fashion. Ditto if you run it on a lower-cost, lower-power machine that offers, say, half the registers and twice the memory latencies.
Meanwhile, your I-cache gets stressed out because of all the long instructions needed to get so much less done. Sure, when you're in a predictably tight loop with few or no intra-iterative dependencies, the loop itself might take within 5x the number of bytes of code, compared to x86, in I-cache, and run a lot faster (at least on paper).
But all the "scalar" code really blows up your I-cache, or so I assume. Whereas a CPU with a bit-efficient ISA, such as the x86, fits a lot more into the same I-cache, with the tradeoff that it might use a smaller I-cache in order to gain space for a microcode-like decoding of "hot spots" in the code it is running (e.g. loops), in which case that microcode is, obviously, fairly carefully tuned to suit that particular processor. (Yes, it's basically got the optimization phase of a compiler on the chip at that point, something VLIW theoretically doesn't need.)
IMO, before VLIW/EPIC chips become winners, we'd have to see a fundamental leap in the ability of not just compilers, but operating systems, libraries, linkers/loaders, and so on, to accommodate truly dynamic, chip-specific generation of machine code from a predigested form of the original code.
It's not unlike what would be needed to really take advantage of per-CPU knowledge of I-cache, D-cache, L2 cache, TLB, and other concerns, except much more complicated, so I'd try first to demonstrate that a complete OS could take advantage of today's CPUs, before assuming one could take sufficient advantage of VLIW/EPIC to justify rolling out a whole new architecture.
Practice random senselessness and act kind of beautiful.