****A bit OT****
From The Register.
--
AMD calls on Transmeta to help crack
Sledgehammer
By: Tony Smith
Posted: 05/01/2001 at 11:37 GMT
AMD appears to be ready to recruit Transmeta to give its 64-bit
Sledgehammer CPU a clear lead over Intel's own server-oriented
processor, Itanium.
The deal centres on Transmeta's code-morphing technology -
software that converts chunks of object code created for processor
A into chip B's native machine language. AMD's plan appears to be
to use Transmeta's scheme to map 32-bit x86 instructions onto
Sledgehammer's own 64-bit code.
The upshot: rather better backward compatibility and superior
performance with legacy apps than Itanic can offer, or so AMD
hopes. For its part, Transmeta gets access to the Sledgehammer
instruction set, which it can, of course, emulate on top of its own
Crusoe CPU line should it wish to do so.
Hints about the licensing deal come from unnamed software
developer sources cited by CNet. Such an arrangement is entirely
feasible since the two have been talking for some time about
bringing Transmeta's power management technology over to AMD's
processors.
That the two companies were chatting was confirmed by AMD
president Hector Ruiz (see AMD talking to Transmeta - official) last
August. The focus then was on developing low-power, appliance and
Webpad-oriented chips, but if such talks probed fruitful, it's not
difficult to imagine them being extended to other areas, such as
Sledgehammer.
All of this follows on from what we heard back in November (see
Transmeta helping out AMD, MS with Sledgehammer coding?) that
AMD was indeed looking beyond its original line of discussion with
Transmeta in order to soup up its Sledgehammer simulator code at
Microsoft's behest.
The Beast of Redmond got involved in the AMD-Transmeta
partnership after AMD's Athlon-based Sledgehammer simulator (the
Linux version was launched last October) package proved
something of a dud performance-wise. Cnet's "software developer"
source is probably someone well-placed within M$.
That said, Microsoft officially denied knowledge of any
AMD-Transmeta team-up, and its stance on Sledgehammer
remains firmly on the fence: it hasn't committed itself to porting apps
over, but is keeping its options open. ® |
