Transmeta Introduces Efficeon Chip

Transmeta Corp. on Tuesday launched the most important product in the company's brief history, a powerful, yet energy-efficient processor the company hopes will take root in the growing market for servers, PCs, and handheld devices that deliver faster performance but go easy on batteries and other power sources.

Transmeta's Efficeon can run RISC-based apps or translate x86 code. Built using 130-nanometer technology, Efficeon can process eight instructions per clock tick--twice that of its Crusoe TM5800 predecessor--and features a 1-Mbyte cache size, an increase over Crusoe's 512-Kbyte cache. Efficeon can also run at a speed of 1.1 GHz while drawing 7 watts of electricity.

Transmeta's challenge in the past hasn't been so much the quality of its technology or its message of high performance and low power. Rather, it's been keeping the competition at bay. "Each time Transmeta finds a niche, Intel chases them out," says Martin Reynolds, a fellow at consulting firm Gartner. With Efficeon, Transmeta must demonstrate performance improvements, power efficiency, and competitive pricing, as well as a product road map that will keep it ahead of Intel, the analyst says.

Transmeta launched its Crusoe processor in 2000 to be an energy-efficient chip for the mobile-computing market. To that end, Transmeta has been successful selling its chips to notebook computer makers such as Fujitsu, Sony, and Toshiba, as well as RLX Technologies, a maker of server blades. Transmeta says Efficeon takes energy efficiency and processing power "to a whole new level." Efficeon's performance and energy-conservation attributes make it a candidate to be used in notebook PCs with screens as large as 14 inches, says Art Swift, Transmeta's senior VP of marketing. The Crusoe was effective for use in notebooks with up to 10-inch displays.

Although Transmeta commands less than 1% of the overall processor market, the company has one advantage over its competitors, Gartner's Reynolds says. Transmeta processors don't directly run x86 processor code, which means they can also be used inside RISC-based servers.

This versatility might not be enough for Transmeta to keep Intel and others off its turf. The most illustrative example of the company's difficulty in emerging markets came a few years ago when RLX decided to expand its lineup of blade servers to include both Transmeta and Intel versions. Previously, RLX had been committed to building Transmeta-only products, Reynolds says.

RLX has since May 2001 been using Transmeta Crusoe processors in its entry-level line of blade servers, which are designed for low power consumption. At the time, Intel didn't have a 5-watt chip in that form, says Bob Van Steenberg, RLX's chief technology officer and VP of development. Still, less than a year later, RLX introduced an Intel-based blade server.

Today, RLX's most-current Transmeta-based blade, the ServerBlade 1000t, runs a 1-GHz Crusoe TM5800 processor with integrated 512 Kbytes of Level 2 cache. The company's ServerBlade 800i and 1200i run 800-MHz Pentium III and 1.2 GHz Pentium III Processor-M chips, respectively.

Van Steenberg says Transmeta will continue to play a role in RXL's ServerBlade lineup for the immediate future. The 1000t lets users put 336 blades in a single 42U rack that remains cool to the touch, even at the top of the rack, where most heat tends to collect, he says. But as RLX considers its development options for 2004, the company will weigh the new Efficeon against Intel's Pentium-M. "The decision will depend on performance and price," Van Steenberg says.

Transmeta's road map for Efficeon includes a 90-nanometer version in 2004 that can run as fast as 2.0 GHz at 25 watts. The company will also introduce the next generation of its Long Run power-management technology next year. In 2005, Transmeta plans to release a 65-nanometer version of Efficeon.