Posts: 604
Threads: 584
Joined: Dec 2008
Mobile computing has been the buzzword for quite a long time. Mobile computing devices like laptops, webslates & notebook PCs are becoming common nowadays. The heart of every PC whether a desktop or mobile PC is the microprocessor. Several microprocessors are available in the market for desktop PCs from companies like Intel, AMD, Cyrix etc.The mobile computing market has never had a microprocessor specifically designed for it. The microprocessors used in mobile PCs are optimized versions of the desktop PC microprocessor. Mobile computing makes very different demands on processors than desktop computing, yet up until now, mobile x86 platforms have simply made do with the same old processors originally designed for desktops. Those processors consume lots of power, and they get very hot. When you're on the go, a power-hungry processor means you have to pay a price: run out of power before you've finished, run more slowly and lose application performance, or run through the airport with pounds of extra batteries. A hot processor also needs fans to cool it; making the resulting mobile computer bigger, clunkier and noisier. A newly designed microprocessor with low power consumption will still be rejected by the market if the performance is poor. So any attempt in this regard must have a proper 'performance-power' balance to ensure commercial success. A newly designed microprocessor must be fully x86 compatible that is they should run x86 applications just like conventional x86 microprocessors since most of the presently available software?s have been designed to work on x86 platform. Crusoe is the new microprocessor which has been designed specially for the mobile computing market. It has been designed after considering the above mentioned constraints. This microprocessor was developed by a small Silicon Valley startup company called Transmeta Corp. after five years of secret toil at an expenditure of $100 million. 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 the CMOS process. The chip's design is based on a technique called VLIW 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 a highly integrated processor available in different versions for different market segments.
computer science crazy
Guest
CRUSOE PROCESSOR
This paper deals with the architecture of the new revolutionary processor Crusoe. Crusoe, launched in 2000 by transmeta Inc . Is next generation microprocessor which uses a hardware and software to achieve dynamic reconfiguration and power saving. We examine the need for such a design, the gains and the details of the processor. Since the Intel x86 ISA (Instruction Set Architecture) is the predominant one in the market we do all this analysis with respect to a typical Pentium II/III. To design the Crusoe processor chips, the Transmeta engineers did not resort to exotic fabrication processes. Instead they rethought the fundamentals of microprocessor design. Rather than throwing hardware at design problems, they chose an innovative approach that employs a unique combination of hardware and software. Using software to decompose complex instructions into simple atoms and to schedule and optimize the atoms for parallel execution saves millions of logic transistors and cuts power consumption on the order of 60-70% over conventional approaches while at the same time enabling aggressive code optimizations techniques that are simply not feasible in traditional x86 implementations. Transmeta?s Code Morphing software and fast VLIW hardware, working together.
Posts: 2,481
Threads: 1,434
Joined: Mar 2010
Posts: 3,561
Threads: 923
Joined: Sep 2010
Introduction
To design the Crusoe processor chips, the Transmeta engineers did not resort to exotic fabrication processes. Instead they rethought the fundamentals of microprocessor design. Rather than throwing hardware at design problems, they chose an innovative approach that employs a unique combination of hardware and software.
Using software to decompose complex instructions into simple atoms and to schedule and optimize the atoms for parallel execution saves millions of logic transistors and cuts power consumption on the order of 60-70% over conventional approaches while at the same time enabling aggressive code optimizations techniques that are simply not feasible in traditional x86 implementations. Transmeta’s Code Morphing software and fast VLIW hardware, working together..
Posts: 2,300
Threads: 878
Joined: Sep 2010
[attachment=5636]
CRUSOE PROCESSOR
INTRODUCTION
Mobile computing has been the buzzword for quite a long time. Mobile computing devices like laptops, webslates & notebook PCs are becoming common nowadays. The heart of every PC whether a desktop or mobile PC is the microprocessor. Several microprocessors are available in the market for desktop PCs from companies like Intel, AMD, Cyrix etc.The mobile computing market has never had a microprocessor specifically designed for it. The microprocessors used in mobile PCs are optimized versions of the desktop PC microprocessor. Mobile computing makes very different demands on processors than desktop computing, yet up until now, mobile x86 platforms have simply made do with the same old processors originally designed for desktops. Those processors consume lots of power, and they get very hot. When you're on the go, a power-hungry processor means you have to pay a price: run out of power before you've finished, run more slowly and lose application performance, or run through the airport with pounds of extra batteries. A hot processor also needs fans to cool it; making the resulting mobile computer bigger, clunkier and noisier. A newly designed microprocessor with low power consumption will still be rejected by the market if the performance is poor. So any attempt in this regard must have a proper 'performance-power' balance to ensure commercial success. A newly designed microprocessor must be fully x86 compatible that is they should run x86 applications just like conventional x86 microprocessors since most of the presently available software’s have been designed to work on x86 platform.
http://studentbank.in/report-crusoe--5348
Posts: 1,149
Threads: 370
Joined: Jun 2010
CRUSOE PROCESSOR
Abstract:
Transmeta released its Very Long Instruction Word (VLIW) processor Known as the Crusoe processor, it is a hardware-software hybrid that uses a code morphing technique to emulate the x86 architecture. Here software known as Code Morphing Software converts the normal x86 instructions into the native VLIW code. In this technique, software is loaded from the ROM upon boot up and used to control the scheduling of instructions. Compatibility with x86 applications is assured because this software is able to insulate programs from the hardware engine s native VLIW instruction set.
The code morphing technique keeps the core logic design of the Crusoe processor simple and provides a solution for the problems posed by traditional architectures. Avery low power consumption is one of the resultant benefits and this makes the Crusoe most suited for internet appliances and mobile applications.
As modern CPUs became more complex, they tend to have more hardware, and perform more functions than their early RISC predecessors. All that hardware requires lots of power though, and the more power a CPU draws the hotter it gets. When Transmeta designed the Crusoe system they went back to basics. They looked at the entire picture they did not just say how fast could we make this system they said, How efficient can we possibly make this, and still have it run x86 applications acceptably . So instead of having in the past one primary directive they had two. So certain things would have to be traded off to make this the best system possible.
Posts: 6,566
Threads: 1,107
Joined: Jul 2011