:The Register: New Transmeta patent reveals x-86 killer design
The Register: New Transmeta patent reveals x-86 killer design Sep 29, 1999, 14 :52 UTC (21 Talkback[s]) (10516 reads) (Other stories by John Lettice)
"Another patent granted to Transmeta seems to have established what the mysterious outfit is up to pretty
clearly. Briefly, the company's processor is intended to be faster than anything built using current
technology, and to be able to run any of the operating software for any existing processors - faster than
the original..."
"In English, it seems that Transmeta is going for simple hardware that can
achieve very high clock speeds early on in the ramp, and using this to more than compensate for any
speed degradations caused by using software rather than hardware optimisation. Multiple instruction sets
can be built into software (although the company's description talks largely of x86, so it's clear who's
being gone after), and Transmeta will also cache translated instructions in a "translation buffer," so the
amount of translation needed is minimised..."
"But don't you think that, with the latest information going into the public domain, that Transmeta's secret is
more or less blown? Might as well announce it then - over to you, Linus."
