Computer Systems Laboratory Colloquium
4:15PM, Wednesday, Feb 9, 2000
NEC Auditorium, Gates Computer Science Building B03
Transmeta's Crusoe: A Low-Power x86-Compatible Microprocessor built with Software
David R. Ditzel
Chief Executive Officer, Transmeta Corporation
About the talk:
Transmeta has recently introduced a new microprocessor family named Crusoe.
Crusoe in unique in that it is the first microprocessor whose instruction set
is implemented entirely with software. Software dynamically translates any
x86 software to an underlying VLIW processor that contains special hardware
support for dynamic translation. The net result is a processor that is fully
compatible with all x86 software, has high performance, but uses very low
power consumption (about 1 watt). The first two Crusoe processors are the
400 MHz TM3120 for mobile internet devices using Mobile Linux,
and the 700 MHz TM5400 for traditional notebook computers running Windows.
A new power management mode called LongRun will be discussed,
that can dynamically adjust the processor frequency and voltage on the fly
to minimize power consumption for mobile computer systems.
About the speaker:
Dave Ditzel is Chief Executive Officer and a founder of Transmeta Corporation.
He is a long term microprocessor designer, having worked on over 20 different processor
designs, prior to Transmeta he was chief technical officer for
Sun Microelectronics on their SPARC processors.
He co-authored "The Case for the Reduced Instruction Set Computer" in 1980
and has published over 30 papers in the field of advanced computer design.
Contact information:
David R. Ditzel
Transmeta Corporation
3940 Freedom Circle
Santa Clara, CA, 95054