Transmeta's Crusoe

Transmeta's family of Crusoe microprocessors has been specifically designed to solve the problems of mobile and Internet computing in ways other processors could not. But even after four years of its launch, Crusoe has not posed any significant threat to Intel's mobile computing microprocessor Centrino, which seems to be going from strength to strength. Critics wonder what the future holds for Crusoe.

Crusoe isn't just another processor. It's a whole new world.

- Transmeta

Transmeta, a publicly traded company located in Santa Clara, California, developed software based microprocessors and other hardware and software technologies that enabled computers to combine long battery life with high performance. Transmeta's family of Crusoe microprocessors was targeted at the notebook and Internet appliance segments of the mobile Internet computer market, as well as ultradense servers2 and a range of embedded applications. Transmeta had about 300 employees in the United States, Japan, and Taiwan. By the end of 2000, cashing in on the buzz it created in the market, Transmeta had made its hugely successful IPO. The share price at one point of time hit $45. Crusoe held the promise of staging a revolution leading to lightweight computers without compromising processing power. But even four years after its launch, Crusoe had not posed any significant threat to Intel's mobile computing microprocessor Centrino, which seemed to be going from strength to strength. Transmeta's senior executives wonder what the future holds for Crusoe. These concerns were reflected in the share price, which had fallen to $1 by the end of 2002.

Crusoe

On January 19, 2000, Transmeta introduced Crusoe, a new microprocessor, into a market over which Intel traditionally had a stranglehold. Crusoe was unlike other products that had come before it. It was specifically designed to solve the problems of mobile and Internet computing in ways other processors could not.

Transmeta believed a new architectural approach was needed to tap the full potential of the mobile computing market and Crusoe would achieve it. Crusoe architecture relied on software to perform a range of functions that were performed by hardware in similar processors offered by competitors. This repartitioning of functionality created a great deal of flexibility in offering solutions that were more tailored to specific market segments. Crusoe made mobile devices smaller and lighter, resulting in less generation of heat, a problem that plagued the industry's legacy hardware-only processors. And because it consumed less power, mobile devices running on Crusoe could run far longer on a single battery charge; Crusoe-powered ultra-dense servers also did far more work per watt, far more efficiently. Crusoe was also x-86 compatible³.

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1] www.transmeta.com .
2] Ultradense servers are servers that will allow companies to cram vastly more computing horsepower into each rack of servers without taxing power supplies and air-conditioning systems.
3] The Transmeta Laboratory for Compatibility (TLC), a quality organization within the company, possessed commercial test suites and had also developed start-of-the-art verification methodologies to maintain the x86 compatibility of the Crusoe processor.