12-05-2012, 02:22 PM
Transmeta Crusoe Processors
Transmeta Crusoe Processors.docx (Size: 14 KB / Downloads: 29)
Abstract
CRUSOE is the new microprocessor which has been designed especially for the mobile computing market. It has been designed considering the constraints associated with the optimized versions of the desktop PC microprocessor like high power consumption, gets very hot so they need fans to cool them which makes them bigger, clunkier and noisier, very slow and lose application performance. This microprocessor was developed by a small Silicon Valley Startup Company called Transmeta Corp. The concept of Crusoe is well understood from the simple sketch of the processor architecture called ‘amoeba’. In this concept, the x86-architecture is an ill-defined amoeba containing features like segmentation, ASCII arithmetic, variable-length instructions etc. The amoeba explained how a traditional microprocessor was, in their design, to be divided up into hardware and software. Thus Crusoe was conceptualized as a hybrid microprocessor that is it has a software part and a hardware part with the software layer surrounding the hardware unit. The role of software is to act as an emulator to translate x86 binaries into native code at run time.
Crusoe is a 128-bit microprocessor fabricated using CMOS process. The chip’s design is based on a technique called VLIW [Very Long Instruction Word] to ensure design simplicity and high performance. Besides this it also uses Transmeta’s two patented technologies namely, Code Morphing Software and Longrun Power Management. It is highly integrated processor available in different versions for different market segments. The Transmeta designers have decoupled the x86 instruction set architecture (ISA) from the underlying processor hardware, which allows this hardware to be very different from a conventional x86 implementation. For the same reason, the underlying hardware can be changed radically without affecting legacy x86 software: each new CPU design only requires a new version of the Code Morphing software to translate x86 instructions to the new CPU’s native instruction set.