<A> Torvalds Offers Transmeta Clue
wired.com
LAS VEGAS -- Transmeta Corp.,
one of Silicon Valley's most
secretive startups, is working on
what it says is a "smart"
microprocessor, and more details
will be coming 19 January, its
most famous employee told the
giant Comdex computer show
here.
Linus Torvalds, the creator of the
increasingly popular Linux
operating system who also works
at Transmeta, disclosed a few
details at the tail end of his
keynote address at the Comdex
show on Monday night with one
paragraph in his slides to
describe what Transmeta does.
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Torvalds said he could not
provide any further details.
Following the keynote address,
Transmeta's Web site was
updated to say that it will be
releasing a processor called the
"Crusoe." "We rethought the
processor to create a whole new
world of mobility," the company
says on its Web site.
Up until Monday night, the
company's Website has said,
"This Web page is not here yet!
... but it is Y2K compliant."
Speculation has been rife in
recent weeks that Torvalds would
disclose some details on what
Transmeta is doing at Comdex.
Many in both the semiconductor
industry and the Linux community
are keenly interested in what the
company is doing, because there
is widespread speculation that
Transmeta's processor could
compete with the dominant
family of chips from Intel Corp.
One industry source said that if
the product works, it will pose a
serious threat to Intel. But,
unlike Intel's archrival Advanced
Micro Devices Inc. in Sunnyvale,
Calif., Transmeta is not working
on its own version of Intel's core
microprocessor design, the source
said.
Another semiconductor industry
source who asked not to be
identified said Transmeta is tying
a big portion of functionality of
the processor to the software,
which is possibly what Torvalds is
doing at the company.
"It has a very streamlined design
and because of that versatile
design, it can be made to look
like almost any processor," said
the industry source. "The idea is
to make it almost chameleon-like
in nature. It consumes a limited
amount of power and it can
mimic any processor out there. If
you could mimic any processor,
who would you want to mimic?"
Torvalds has never disclosed
what exactly he is doing at
Transmeta and the company's
founder and chief executive David
Ditzel, is also keeping mum.
Ditzel, a former Sun
Microsystems Inc. chip designer,
could not be immediately reached
for further comment on the
Crusoe processor.
The company was founded about
four years ago by Ditzel and
includes among its investors
Microsoft Corp. co-founder Paul
Allen, venture capital firms
Institutional Venture Partners,
Integral Capital Partners, and
others.
Earlier this week,
Redherring.com, a Web site for
Red Herring magazine, reported
that Transmeta's microprocessor
was being aimed at Internet
appliances running Linux.
Previously, the company was
developing microprocessors for
high-end laptops, according to
the report, but its processors
could not achieve the same
performance as Intel using half
the power. The revamped
Transmeta Web site offers no
other clues.
<A> Drilling deeper into Torvalds's Transmet
redherring.com
(see link for more links)
By Lawrence Aragon and Phil Harvey
Redherring.com
November 13, 1999
Super-secretive Transmeta is developing
hand-held devices that demonstrate the
power of a new-fangled microprocessor
architecture, Redherring.com has learned.
Since we published a
story about Transmeta's
plans Thursday,
Redherring.com has
gleaned even more
revealing information
about Transmeta, its
product plans, and how
its focus has changed
over time. The company's
ultimate aim is to
overcome Intel's crushing
grip on the chip market for mobile
devices.
A Transmeta manager declined to
comment, noting that the company's
"policy is not to say anything until we
have something to say."
WORKING AROUND WINTEL
Redherring.com sources
say the company is
making a microprocessor
for Internet appliances
running the Linux
operating system. It's a
huge undertaking. With
Transmeta's chip
technology -- which
translates software
written for Intel's
(Nasdaq: INTC) x86
architecture to
Transmeta's native P95
architecture -- a handheld device would
be able to run Windows CE applications
without using Microsoft's (Nasdaq:
MSFT) OS or Intel's chips. (For an
in-depth look at Transmeta's technology,
based on its patent filings, see Thursday's
story.)
Transmeta executives are mulling
whether Linus Torvalds, the company's
pitchman, should flash a
Transmeta-powered Web device as a
proof of concept when he delivers his
keynote speech at Comdex on Monday
evening, a former hardware designer for
Transmeta says. The company has not
planned to make a detailed announcement
about its vision and technology until
mid-January.
Two Transmeta insiders say that the
company is in discussions with Merrill
Lynch (NYSE: MER) about arming
Merrill's brokers with
Transmeta-powered Web devices for use
on trading floors. No contracts have been
signed, the sources say. A spokeswoman
for Merrill Lynch declined to comment.
Transmeta has also developed prototypes
of other devices, including point-of-sale
systems for use in supermarkets, a source
close to the company says.
Beneath the burgeoning hype of
Transmeta's secrecy are problems typical
of a growing company with no products
on the market. Between September 1998
and now, the company lost several
hardware engineers, a former hardware
designer says. Citing the fact that most of
the company's technology innovation
occurs in the software close to the chips,
the source says, "There's a feeling that
there's not really anything new to keep
them interested."
But the media is rabidly interested in the
company, largely because of its
connection to Linux creator Linus
Torvalds and a number of Sun
Microsystems (Nasdaq: SUNW)
executives and engineers who work at the
company.
LINUX LOVE
Given the Linux/Sun connection, it's no
wonder that the company is trying to find
a market outside the world of Wintel.
Transmeta CEO David Ditzel "hails from
Sun's Sparc group, so it's not too hard to
see the attraction to Linus [Torvalds],"
says Michael Feibus, principal analyst at
market research firm Mercury Research.
"For one, Dave's got a Unix background
at Sun, so Linux is a natural fit for his
past development bent. Given the
low-cost nature of the hardware
Transmeta is rumored to be developing,
the nonexistent fees for Linux are a good
match."
Leading the hardware and software
groups at Transmeta is Doug Laird, who
last year held the title of vice president of
engineering for Transmeta. Roughly a
year ago, Mr. Laird replaced Colin
Hunter, Transmeta's former chief
financial officer and head of software
development. Mr. Hunter founded Hunter
Software Systems -- a company that
developed a way to automate porting
DOS programs to Unix -- in 1986. That's
a nice fit with Transmeta's vision of
enabling devices to run Windows-based
applications without Intel chips.
Mr. Hunter is still affiliated with
Transmeta, but Redherring.com was
unable to confirm his title.
BIG BLUES
IBM (NYSE: IBM), which helped fund
Hunter Software Systems, is doing
production work for Transmeta's chip,
two sources say. The former hardware
developer says that IBM even produced a
Java compiler for Transmeta's P95
architecture.
But IBM was less interested in
developing specific applications than it
was in having the rights to a new way of
emulating Intel's x86 architecture, sources
say. The former Transmeta hardware
designer says Transmeta's relationship
with IBM "cooled" when Transmeta
failed to deliver a chip that matched
certain price and performance
expectations.
"The further you move away from a
cheapo clone, the more interesting it
becomes from an applications
perspective, but less interesting as a
traditional partnership," says a Transmeta
source.
Transmeta originally thought it could
compete by developing microprocessors
for high-end laptops. The company tried
to build a chip that could achieve
performance comparable to a 400-MHz
Intel Pentium II, but that used just half the
power needed to run Intel's chips.
Transmeta, however, "severely
underestimated the performance impact of
their approach to running x86
applications," the hardware designer
says.
HEY, WILMA!
In other words, he explains, versions of
Transmeta's chip (two of them
code-named for Fred and Wilma
Flintstone) turned out to be better suited
for Internet devices, since they don't
require the same level of performance as
a high-end laptop computer.
The other company source played down
the shift in Transmeta's focus. "There was
always an underlying feeling that this was
a technology playing into a sea change,"
he says. "The question was which sea
change they should address."
In the consumer market alone, technology
research firm Forrester Research
(Nasdaq: FORR) predicts that new Web
devices, which will primarily appeal to
heavy Net users, will reach 18 million
households by 2003.
Transmeta, founded in 1996, is
venture-backed by the Soros Funds,
Institutional Venture Partners, Paul
Allen's Vulcan Ventures, Bancboston
Robertson Stephens, Integrated Capital
Partners, and Bay View Ventures.
It's unclear how much Transmeta has in
its war chest. As of July 1997, the
company raised $21 million in three
venture rounds, according to Venture
Economics.
An inside source says that the company
was burning through about $1 million a
month and raised about $25 million
earlier this year, giving it a valuation of
about $250 million. |
