More Transmeta Rumours

id writes "JC has some rumours about Transmeta including one that suggests that the chip will be software upgradeable, so new instructions could be added at a later date to keep pace with other vendors " Most of it is stuff we already know, but it notes that the chips will be expensive, even though they will be cheap to produce, as well as talking about it being software upgradable.

Comments

TransMeta

[substrate]

Some of the information is alarming if its true, though I doubt its veracity. Custom sockets and RAM could easily kill this CPU. The development of a socket is a very non-trivial task and custom RAM requirments can be very pricey. As for this not being a cheap CPU there is almost no way that it could be. Intel may be a few times larger, but there volume will more than make up for it.

Upgradable microcode sounds more useful than it probably is. Sure, you can add new instructions to keep up with the competition but only for a short while. Eventually some architectural feature will stand in the way and while the microcode may due the feature it won't do it efficiently.

Intel has the bucks to do arbitrary architecture changes just to keep the competition on its toes.

My prediction

[EngrBohn]

Transmeta's processor will be a Java screamer. If it is designed at the silicon-level to translate other instruction sets into its native code, then besides x86, PPC, 68k, & Alpha instructions [1], there's no reason why it should not be able to make the translation for (most of) the Java instruction set.

[1] I don't know that any or all of those will be implemented -- those are just examples.

Christopher A. Bohn