Transmeta Corp., well known as the employer of Linux-creator Linus Torvalds, used the occasion of COMDEX 2000 (Las Vegas, NV) to show off a broad array of new devices containing the company's recently introduced Crusoe processor. In all, the company showcased eleven customer applications — including five notebook computers, five webpad devices, and one Internet server appliance. Of these, all but the notebook computers and server appliance were based on Transmeta's Crusoe-based webpad reference design combined with Mobile Linux, a Transmeta-developed port of the Linux operating system to Crusoe.

The embedded Linux based applications appearing in Transmeta's COMDEX booth included:

• Acer “WP300” webpad with 50 meter wireless range and up to 8 hours of battery life.
  
• FIC “I-Surf” webpad with instant-on and wireless connectivity for consumer and commercial markets.
  
• Gateway “Connected Touch Pad” with Instant AOL and innovative Mobile Linux operating system for improved reliability and lower cost. (Note: This device, though adapted from the Transmeta webpad reference design, is not a portable unit.)
  
• Hitachi “wireless Internet friendly webpad” for mobile connectivity.
  
• Seewoo webpad with multiple OS compatibility and expandability options.
  
• Rebel “Netwinder 3100” all-in-one Internet Server Appliance with comprehensive gateway functionality and security, including file and print sharing and discussion group support.

Transmeta makes the schematics and bills of materials of its Crusoe-based battery-powered webpad reference design freely available to developers via download from the company's website (registration required). Additionally, Transmeta's customized port of Linux to the Crusoe processor, called Mobile Linux, is freely available under the GNU General Public License (GPL). Transmeta's Mobile Linux port contains support for the Crusoe processor's unique code morphing and power management capabilities.

According to a Transmeta spokesperson, the company has thus far limited its promotin of Crusoe primarily to tier one electronics manufacturers that build high volumes of consumer-oriented products, due to the difficulty of supporting the large number of developers in the broader embedded systems market. According to the source, the company is in the process of developing strategic relationships with several embedded Linux suppliers in an effort to extend the use of Crusoe CPUs to a wider range of embedded system applications.

Crusoe offers substantially higher performance than rival low-power X86 architecture CPUs such as National's Geode and STMicroelectronics' STPC, allowing the device to be successfully used within applications that require high bandwidth video and audio data streaming, said the source. Crusoe currently provides CPU clock rates of 400 to 667 MHz, vs. 266 MHz for Geode and 133 MHz for STPC. On the other hand, Geode and STPC provide significantly higher integration levels, including built-in controllers for I/O such as video, networking, serial, and USB — whereas Crusoe contains no internal I/O controllers. That situation is expected to change sometime during the coming twelve months, with Crusoe family processors beginning to gain more of the attributes of a true system-on-chip processor.

 
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