Transmeta´s magic show [microprocessor chips]

Author

Geppert, L. ; Perry, T.S.

Volume

37

Issue

5

fYear

2000

fDate

5/1/2000 12:00:00 AM

Firstpage

26

Lastpage

33

Abstract

It took Transmeta engineers $100 million, five years of secret toil, and a little magic to create fast low-power chips that turn into x86s in a microsecond. Transmeta Corporation´s Crusoe chips look nothing like Intel´s Pentium processors. They do not even have a logic gate in common. They are smaller, consume between one-third and one-thirtieth the power (depending on the application), and implement none of the same instructions in hardware. However the Crusoe microprocessors can run the same software that runs on IBM PC-compatible personal computers with Pentium chips-for instance, Microsoft Windows or versions of Unix, along with their software applications. The paper describes the development of the Crusoe chips

Keywords

microprocessor chips; Crusoe chips; Crusoe microprocessors; IBM PC-compatible personal computers; Microsoft Windows; Transmeta Corporation; Unix; low-power chips; microprocessor chips; software applications; Chip scale packaging; Computer architecture; Contracts; Hardware; Marketing and sales; Microprocessors; Personal communication networks; Reduced instruction set computing; Remuneration; VLIW;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Spectrum, IEEE

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

0018-9235

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/6.842131

Filename

842131