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Transmeta Hardware

New Transmeta Chip: "Efficeon" 183

Posted by michael from the let-the-jokes-begin dept.
ddtstudio writes "Oh, "Astro" was such a friendly name -- but it probably had trademark issues. So the alphabet blender came up with "Efficeon" instead. This eWeek story gives the lowdown on what Transmeta is doing apres Linus. There's also a writeup on ExtremeTech."
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New Transmeta Chip: "Efficeon" More

New Transmeta Chip: "Efficeon"

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  • Marketing (Score:4, Interesting)

    by mjmalone ( 677326 ) * on Tuesday August 12, 2003 @12:32PM (#6677237) Homepage
    From the article:

    Transmeta is the "number two" vendor in the ultraportable mainstream notebook market

    Is that why nobody knows about them? Maybe they should focus some attention on advertising, I don't think many people outside the tech industry knows about Transmeta. Intel spends a rediculous amount of money on product marketing, and when many people get a new computer they want "Intel Inside" because it's what they know. I think if any competitor really wants to break into the chip industry and compete with the big boys they are going to have to get their name out, the real differences between one chip versus another are not very obvious to the consumer, brand recognition is what drives sales.

    • Re:Marketing (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 12, 2003 @12:38PM (#6677303)
      That's why VIA is becoming more and more popular. If you think "ultra-small sized PCs" you have to think mini-ITX, and VIA EPIA.

      This is what I think (may be biased by publicity, but that's exactly my point) :
      Intel = reliable, industry standard (never had any Intel die, even since the 8086 days)
      AMD = power, speed, will burn without good heat dissipation (had two AMDs die on me, installed professionally. Will never buy AMD again)
      VIA = low-heat, small size (currently two projets using EPIA boards)

    • Re:Marketing (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Raul654 ( 453029 ) on Tuesday August 12, 2003 @12:41PM (#6677335) Homepage
      Transmetta specializes in low power computing. That's their niche - processors that don't eat up much energy. This really isn't a direct-sale market. The stuff they make is built into other devices. So their job is to convience sony and/or palm or whoever makes the low power (read - portable) devices that they are the ones to talk to. So I don't think there's really a need to become well known outside the computing industry.

      • Re:Marketing (Score:5, Insightful)

        by DrinkDr.Pepper ( 620053 ) on Tuesday August 12, 2003 @01:00PM (#6677538)
        Transmetta specializes in low power computing. That's their niche - processors that don't eat up much energy. This really isn't a direct-sale market. The stuff they make is built into other devices. So their job is to convience sony and/or palm or whoever makes the low power (read - portable) devices that they are the ones to talk to. So I don't think there's really a need to become well known outside the computing industry.

        True, but companies who make consumer devices would be more inclined to listen to Transmeta if consumers were demanding devices with Transmeta processors. The way to convice consumers is with direct marketing. If you were correct, Intel wouldn't need to targer consumers either, since most of Intel's sales are to OEM, not direct either.

        • Right (Score:1, Insightful)

          by Anonymous Coward
          But what % of palm or Rio owners can name what kind of processor powers it? With a PC, the first spec listed is going to be the processor type. Consequently, that gets a lot of attention. With handhelds, most people care a lot more about battery life or form factor than processor type. Which is why I just can't see the day when people start writing in demanding Transmetta processors.

        • Re:Marketing (Score:4, Funny)

          by realdpk ( 116490 ) on Tuesday August 12, 2003 @01:07PM (#6677612) Homepage Journal
          If I start getting direct marketing from Transmeta, I will be seriously pissed. I get enough direct marketing every day already, I don't need more junk stuffed in my mailbox or telemarketers on my phone, not to mention spam in my e-mail.

      • Re:Marketing (Score:5, Interesting)

        by TheViffer ( 128272 ) on Tuesday August 12, 2003 @01:19PM (#6677722)
        And 640K is enough for anyone ...

        I completly disagree with your posts.

        First low power consumption is become more and more and issue. Electricity is not cheap, and with more and more computers in organizations, they are looking for ways to cut down on the electricity bill.

        This is two fold because with lower power consumption means less heat. Walla .. save MORE electricity by not running huge, or as many air conditioning units.

        This even falls back to home use. 10 years ago running your own home server was a "pipe dream" and not needed. Now just about every slashdot reader has some sort of server(s) running. I myself only run a Duron 1000 due to is low power consumption and cooler temperatures. For serving up files and a few dns, web hits is more then enough. After switch DOWN from a Palamino cored Athlon to this, I saw my monthly electric usage decline.

        And your mention of not needing to market is just wrong. They should be out there stating ...

        We run cooler ..
        We run cheaper ..

        And add in a few plugs .. We run faster, better, cheaper, blah blah blah. Go to the extent of showing a picture of an Athlon frying an egg on one picture and a piece of ice sitting on a Trasmetta CPU. And by marketing their name, people come to know it, and trust it more, which mean people will be more interested in products with their chips, which mean more companies will seek out Transmetta chips which mean more revenue.

        Why does BASF advertise .. "We dont make 'jack', we just make 'jack' better"

        My 0010 cents worth.
        • I totally agree. I'm surprised that more energy efficiency isn't demanded from PCs in both corporate and home markets.

          One of my pet peeves is how "SpeedStep" and "PowerNow!" technologies from Intel and AMD for mobile chips are not used in the desktop chips. These systems do a good job of saving power and probably take neglible amounts of die space and other costs, yet we don't get them on the desktop. I suppose Intel and AMD are scared of desktop chips being used in mobiles, and thereby eating away at

    • Re:Marketing (Score:5, Insightful)

      by dodell ( 83471 ) <{moc.scinortetis} {ta} {lledod}> on Tuesday August 12, 2003 @12:43PM (#6677358) Homepage
      Then again, there needs to be a budget for said ridiculous amounts of money.

      I think Transmeta is doing a good job getting their chips marketed. HP is including them in their products; this seems to me to be a pretty good method of advertising in the first place -- if your product is already accepted by a major manufacturer, you're halfway there. Then again, I don't think they're in precisely the same market as Intel in the first place.

    • Re:Marketing (Score:3, Insightful)

      by bogie ( 31020 )
      What good is it for Transmeta to advertise like Intel does when unlike Intel you probably can't go to your local store and buy a machine with a Transmeta cpu in it?

      "I think if any competitor really wants to break into the chip industry and compete with the big boys they are going to have to get their name out, the real differences between one chip versus another are not very obvious to the consumer, brand recognition is what drives sales."

      No not really, the people who buy from big boys already know about

      • What good is it for Transmeta to advertise like Intel does when unlike Intel you probably can't go to your local store and buy a machine with a Transmeta cpu in it?

        Actually, I can go to my local store and buy such a machine, a Sony, last time I looked. Maybe you need a better store.

        Chris

      • Fry's isn't exactly a grocery store, though you can get coffee beans and corn chips as well as Java books and memory chips, but you can usually walk in and pick up a couple models of very lightweight portables, and often one of them is Transmeta-based.

        It'd be nice if the new chip is at least a bit faster than the Via stuff - the 800 MHz mini-itx boxes don't need fans, but are supposed to be really marginal at crunching DVDs, while the 1 GHz version of the mini-itx have fans in them. Small ones, but not

    • Re:Marketing (Score:5, Insightful)

      by advocate_one ( 662832 ) on Tuesday August 12, 2003 @12:50PM (#6677439)
      "Obviously, we don't have the $350 million Intel has" to spend on marketing, he said.



      $350 million buys a lot of presence in magazines etc... Similar problem for linux in trying to get past the reams of Microsoft bought advertorials etc. in the magazines as well...


      Transmeta's Efficeon will have to compete on it's technical merits, and when people who matter realise that it offers a much better power consumption, lower temperatures and much longer battery life they'll start to take it up. 3 hours or so with Intel Celeron 1500 is just not on when I was used to some 24 hours or so battery life on my old 8086. Hopefully, the Efficeon will enable them to make notebooks that can cope with a complete working day or more away from the mains outlet... RAM's cheap enough these days to enable them to give it a seriously large cache so as to minimise HD usage, and sticking the OS in a bootable flash disk will improve matters as well. Now we just need a very low power display technology such as high res colour "electronic ink" based thin displays

    • Maybe they should focus some attention on advertising

      For people like me, advertising doesn't work. I would hazard to guess this applies to the majority of the Slashdot readers. If anything, when something is heavily marketed as being "the best" I am more likely to scrutinize it more since it's likely not the best, it's just popular. There is a difference. The masses don't have a good handle on what is "the best". Being #1 is not as important as providing a quality product.

    • As Raul points out, the power of this architecture is its low power consumption. 80% of the market doesnt pay attention to such things. They want a fast chip that isnt even utilized (read intel) by the system. The only people who would be interested in purchasing this excellent piece of equiptment will be those who have half a clue (read me). Thanks to forums such as these (read /. (read forum for spinning computer halfwits (read me))), they are getting all the marketing they could ever desire (read fre

  • Performance over name (Score:2, Insightful)

    by xxltjx ( 696780 )
    I've always looked for performance over name brand, and if this chip can do what the article says it can do...it could give Intel a run for it's money in the portable marketplace.
    • I've always looked for performance over name brand, and if this chip can do what the article says it can do...it could give Intel a run for it's money in the portable marketplace.

      I don't know...

      I think people are still stuck on the -ium, -on and -ex suffixes. Infineon being the notable exception, but who the heck outside of hardware builder circles knows of them?

      Efficeon? Is that supposed to draw attention to efficiency, with that 'Fishy' phone in there? Not very efficacious...

      Names they definitely

    • Re:Performance over name (Score:4, Informative)

      by Hoser McMoose ( 202552 ) on Tuesday August 12, 2003 @03:00PM (#6678840)
      I don't know about that. They are promising only 50-80% improvements over their old Crusoe 5800 processor. That would put them as being about on-par with the chips that Intel had out two years ago when the Crusoe 5800 was first available, but it'll have a hell of a time competing with the chips that Intel is producing now, let alone 6+ months from now when this new Transmeta processor actually starts shipping.

      I think that the real question will be how well this chip can compete with Intel's Ultra Low Voltage (ULV) Mobile Celeron line of processors. The two chips will have comperable power consumption (5-10W max, typical of under 5W) and probably won't be too far off one another in terms of price. Previous Transmeta chips have had a heck of a time keeping up with even the slowest mobile Celeron chips that Intel had available (read: they kind of kept up in MS Office, but got pretty well thrashed for everything else), but maybe this newer chip will bring performance up a bit.

  • Efficon? (Score:5, Funny)

    by YU Nicks NE Way ( 129084 ) on Tuesday August 12, 2003 @12:38PM (#6677300)
    Does anyone besides me read this as "F-ing Con"? Maybe my problem is that seems like a good description of Transmeta's current business model.

    • Re:Efficon? (Score:2, Funny)

      by g0at ( 135364 )
      The first two things it conjured in my mind were "efface" (eraser), and "defecate". Hmm...

      -b

      • Definite signs they used ProductNamesForCheep, as I think of...

        • "effete"
        • "effigy" (as in "burn in")
        • "feces"
        • "iffy"
        Transmeta ought to hire the same big-gun name-generating people that came up with "Viagra".
    • pronounced EE-fish-eon

      I know you were joking but just incase anyone was wondering...
    • Efficeon? This is why the marketing department is always the first to go when the IT guy snaps, and starts stalking the cubicles with an AK-47...

    • Re:Efficon? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by qtp ( 461286 ) on Tuesday August 12, 2003 @02:58PM (#6678822) Journal
      Does anyone besides me read this as "F-ing Con"? Maybe my problem is that seems like a good description of Transmeta's current business model.

      Incompetant at marketing, maybe. But that does not mean they are conning anyone. If you had tried a laptop that uses thier Crusoe chip, you would know that thier chips deliver exactly as promised: Extremely efficient use of power and extended battery life (eight plus hours in many models) with acceptable performance. The con game in laptops is convincing users that they need a P4.

    • A fizzy one.

  • whats the big deal (Score:4, Interesting)

    by minus_273 ( 174041 ) <<aaaaa> <at> <SPAM.yahoo.com>> on Tuesday August 12, 2003 @12:40PM (#6677321) Journal
    about transmeta chips.. i know they dont perform as wellad ppc or x86 chips but from what i have heard, they have low power consumption in comparison to the more power fuke chips..
    The one thing that intrrugued me the most (and this is after i saw a friends sony viao) was that these chips make up for the lack of speed in th ability to emulate any processor.. so i ask this: has anyone done it.Have you run ppc software on your transmeta chip... or anythign like that?
    • What would interest me is to know how well it would run Linux if it ran natively on the processor's own instruction set.
      • They did when Linus was there and it ran *slower* because the VLIW instruction set could not exploit enough parallelism at compile-time. Itanium also has the same problems.

    • Re:whats the big deal (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Nerant ( 71826 ) on Tuesday August 12, 2003 @12:47PM (#6677399)
      Transmeta chips are essentially a VLIW CPU, surrounded by a sophisticated JIT compiler that translates and compiles x86 code to the native instruction set of the VLIW CPU, and then runs the code.
      This allows Transmeta to save on die space. Smaller die = less transistors = less heat = less power.
      Unfortunately, this approach so far has yielded substandard performance. And even though power consumption was better than Intel's mobile processors for awhile, Intel quickly geared up, threw money and engineers at the problem, and came out with the Pentium M.
      Arstechnica.com has speculated before that Transmeta could easily use the same approach to optimise for speed/performance as opposed to power consumption : I'm hoping they do.

      • Is n't the Pentium M just a tweaked Pentium III at a smaller feature size? In which case it did n't take much from Intel but then again competition is good even if it loses.
        • The Pentium-M is more of a PIII/P4 hybrid (why reinvent the wheel?). It uses a 400Mhz FSB which is compatible with the P4 bus and has SSE2 support. On the other hand, it has a shorter pipeline than the P4 (though longer than the PIII). Of course, the biggest boost to the P-M's performance is the 1MB of L2 cache (2MB once Intel switches to 90nm fabbing). So yeah, basically it's a PIII core with P4 enhancements plus some new stuff (better power management, more cache, etc).

          • Re:whats the big deal (Score:3, Informative)

            by Yokaze ( 70883 )
            Well, it might be based on the PIII and has adopted some parts of the P4. But it has some more radical changes.

            It has more in common with Transmeta than one might think. It features Micro-Op Fusion (TM)(R)(C). After translating the Ops into muOps they are reassembled to, how do they call them? Not-LIW, no.., ah.. Macro-instruction, which can be executed more efficiently.

            But why should I smatter. Use the source [intel.com] Luke.
        • No. The Pentium M is Intel going for performance and low power full blast instead of doing the Pentium 4 "we just want to ramp up the MHZ for marketing, and we'll leave parts of the chip performing at such slower speeds that the only way to get anything out of those extra cycles is to treat it like a multiprocessor system and stuff another thread down it!" thing. The Pentium M was heralded by people doing processor reviews, but Intel's marketing people were so scared that a higher-performance Intel chip mig

      • Re:whats the big deal (Score:2, Interesting)

        by JamesP ( 688957 )
        The Big Deal is

        Pentium 4-M 2.0Ghz = Thermal Design 32W (but actual power dissipation is higher)

        Crusoe = 1W

        About the "substandart" performance, the JIT compiler is optimized constantly (on the fly) so every benchmark runs faster every time it's run.

        BTW, why do you mean by "substandart" performance? You don't need a P4 to use Word/Excel or listen to MP3 while surfing the net. My old PII 333 did that w/ no sweat.

        Playing DVD's you say... It can play them... Without dropping frames.
        • Your comparing apples and orangutans here when it comes to power consumption. Intel's Thermal Design Power (which the maximum power consumption excluding thermal viruses) for the P4-M 2.0GHz is 32W. Transmeta's Thermal Design Power for the 1.0GHz Crusoe 5800 is 7.5W. The "1W" number that Transmeta likes to flaunt around is the amount of power that the chip consumes while it's sitting around twiddling it's thumbs. For comparison, a P4-M will consume about 5.0W doing the same thing.

          That being said, the
        • Not that I'm disagreeing with your final point (how much power does one need)

          But, you are comparing apple and oranges, or TDP with typical power consumption.

          Thermal Design Power (TDP) represents the maximum amount of power the thermal solution is required to dissipate. The thermal solution should be designed to dissipate the TDP without exceeding the maximum Tjunction specification. TDP does not represent the power delivery and voltage regulation requirements for the processor.

          According to Intel, the

      • Arstechnica.com has speculated before that Transmeta could easily use the same approach to optimise for speed/performance as opposed to power consumption : I'm hoping they do.

        Really? Interesting. I would figure it could never be as fast as native x86, it's all still emulation.

        • Re:whats the big deal (Score:5, Informative)

          by Erich ( 151 ) on Tuesday August 12, 2003 @01:45PM (#6678051) Homepage Journal
          Really? Interesting. I would figure it could never be as fast as native x86, it's all still emulation.
          "Native x86" really doesn't exist. Since the AMD K5 and Intel Pentium Pro, x86 instructions are translated into smaller, RISC-like instructions inside the processor.

          Instead of doing this translation in hardware, Transmeta does this in software, and it enables a lot of optimization while (at the same time) vastly reducing the amount of hardware resources required to do wide, out-of-order execution.

          They get varied results -- some things go much, much faster on the Transmeta, but it's very bad at doing other things (especially things like self-modifying code).

          The internal architecture is also very geared towards translation and running translated code. There are features that allow it to run a bunch of code in a translation that is fast, but not safe. If there is a problem with this unsafe translation (memory exception or something) the execution can be rewinded (rewound?) into a known-good state and a slower translation or interpretation can be used.

          Transmeta has released some good papers [harvard.edu] on this whole thing. If you're interested in this kind of thing, you might want to also check out HP's Dynamo and Intel's DAISY.

          Yay, clever computer architecture!

          • I have a minor nitpick :)

            IBM did Daisy, not Intel.

            Statically scheduled VLIW will almost never outperform a dynamically scheduled out-of-order machine. But, you can save tons of power :)
            • Yes, sorry, typed the wrong thing. IBM did DAISY.

              VLIWs that have code generated dynamically can many times outperform the code on the OOO machine because it has profile information and can do block rescheduling, function inlining, etc. Of course, you can get the same thing by dynamically recompiling the code on the OOO machine (like HP's Dynamo).

              • That's the theory anyways. If dynamic compilation is so great, why aren't there any decent dynamic recompilers? Hint: try doing precise exceptions. What about self-modifying code (oh yes, it's out there - esp. in java and other managed run time apps).

                Also, why doesn't Transmeta get performance that is comparable to a similarly powered out of order machine like Banias? Why does IA64 suck? Couldn't a dynamic recompiler help it out?

                There's too much overhead with a software based dynamic recompiler. The

                • That's the theory anyways. If dynamic compilation is so great, why aren't there any decent dynamic recompilers?

                  There aren't for x86. x86 is a difficult architecture to recompile in place. But for PA-RISC, check out Dynamo.

                  It is true that performance gains are usually not huge for same-architecture recompilation, which limits what you can do to not-very complex things. But many times you can get profile-based, global-optimization compiler performance without compiling your application using profil

      • I understood that Transmeta's goal was high performance. The plan was to beat Intel on both power consumption and performance. When they realized that it wasn't to be they concetrated on the power saving aspects. But way back when the market for these was going to be performance workstations and servers.
    • According to Transmeta's site [transmeta.com], the 'Code Morphing' software only interprets x86 instructions, so we're out of luck there.
      However, it would be nice to have a boot-up menu like:

      1) x86 - Windows XP
      2) PPC - Mac OS X
      3) UltraSPARC II - Solaris 9

      Unfortunately, Transmeta's chips are mainly geared toward being low power consumption, I doubt making a processor that can do a decent job of emulating other processors is high on their list.
      • I'll go one (or many) steps further:

        Rather than picking an emulated CPU at bootup, why not emulate *all* of them simultaneously. Yes, it would be ridiculously resource intensive as you'd have to have nearly a gig of RAM just to host the entire operating system of each emulated processor.

        I envision a small meta-OS that lets you assign resources and manage the emulated environments. Each environment could be spawned as often as resources were available.

        Hardware resources might get tricky, especially when
        • The solution is to have multiple processors. Transmeta is taking the first step in that direction by using a HyperTransport bus. All they have to do (all? ha ha) is add more HT buses and write a little more code morphing software to support glue-less SMP.

          At that point it will make sense to develop more emulation profiles, and develop an operating system which can take advantage of being able to execute disparate instructions. I suspect a particular code object will be tied to a particular CPU at a time, b

          • But won't it be hard to run a binary image without access to that platform's libraries? It almost smells easier to just to boot an entire OS than to shoehorn the OS into one main OS.

            If that was the case, why not just revisit the old "dynamic recompiler" from the WinNT-on-Alpha days that could run x86 applications by dynamically recompiling the x86 binary into Alpha instructions? IIRC it got faster each time it ran them.

            At least that way you wouldn't have to design a super exotic hardware platform.
            • FX!32 was pretty cool but even though the Alpha is a superior processor it did not end up emulating software faster than a Pentium of the same clock rate would have (such a beast did not exist at the time.) I don't seem to remember FX!32 optimizing at each run, but I could be wrong.

              You will certainly need that platform's libraries as operating systems are currently designed. The one exception I can see is OS/400 which allows programs to be made up of object modules from different languages. There's no rea

  • God Dammit! (Score:5, Funny)

    by illuminata ( 668963 ) on Tuesday August 12, 2003 @12:41PM (#6677329) Journal
    Why do companies like Intel, AMD, and Transmeta keep having to name processors so they sound like they came straight from the mouth of Rob Schneider's SNL character The Richmeister?

    The Celer-on, the Opter-on, the Athl-on, the Effice-on.

    It's not good for marketing, guys! Everybody hates Rob Schneider!

  • Efficeon... (Score:3, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 12, 2003 @12:41PM (#6677332)
    ...sounds rather lameon.

  • Trademark, not copyright (Score:5, Informative)

    by _fuzz_ ( 111591 ) <me@daLAPLACEvedunkin.com minus math_god> on Tuesday August 12, 2003 @12:42PM (#6677342) Homepage
    You can't copyright a name, but you can trademark it.

  • So... (Score:5, Funny)

    by dex22 ( 239643 ) <plasticuser@gmail . c om> on Tuesday August 12, 2003 @12:42PM (#6677344) Homepage

    The English will be able to enjoy their Efficeon Chips!

    That joke is so bad, I'm questioning if I should post it.

    Ahhh, whatever!

  • efeminate (Score:1, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    OK, I'm not sexist or anything, but the name they chose is horrible. It reminds me of "effeminate", "flaccid". Get your sissy on, eficeon. I know Celeron is not exactly a powerful sounding moniker, but come on, eficeon? It's like limp cheese.
    • They could have at least added a 'c' in there to make it more appealing to us 80's raised geeks: Eficicon (ala Deceptacons)
    • do you by any chance watch The Daily Show with Jon Stewart on Comedy Central? I just watched it on the tivo about 20 mins ago and that word came up in bold writing on the tv,.. maybe your sub conscious is acting up. I really didn't think it was a word,. .but golly gee dictionary.com proved me wrong.. Having qualities or characteristics more often associated with women than men. See Synonyms at female. Characterized by weakness and excessive refinement
  • That name is so bad, the only thing worse would be 'Crapeon'. Someone needs to get canned over that one.

  • Alternative name (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 12, 2003 @12:46PM (#6677389)
    I propose we stop with these new-fangled blender names. I propose Transmeta call this new chip "The Scotsman."

    Nothing is cheaper with the power than "The Scotsman!" Cue intel-sounding theme, but with bagpipes.

  • What's wrong...was Excretion taken? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by AtariAmarok ( 451306 ) on Tuesday August 12, 2003 @12:46PM (#6677395)
    What an awful name. I think someoen used one of those name generator software packages [creative-n...erator.com]

  • "Rrropyright Rrrissues!" (Score:4, Funny)

    by mariox19 ( 632969 ) on Tuesday August 12, 2003 @12:47PM (#6677402)

    You're darn right there were copyright issues with the name "Astro." [cybercomm.nl]

  • I am become Efficeon, saver of batteries! (Score:5, Funny)

    by RatBastard ( 949 ) on Tuesday August 12, 2003 @12:52PM (#6677465) Homepage
    Behold my power saving and dispair!
  • The bad joke possibilities are just endless...

  • Efficeon --that name has a, ummm, ugly sound to it.

    If it's not too late, maybe the marketing dept. at Transmeta might consider some of my suggestions: "MakeAwisheon"

    Or maybe: "ImProudthatImPolisheon"

    or "Wishwasheon"

    or "Bullisheon"

    or "Squisheon" (my favorite)

  • From dictionary.com
    eff: v : have sexual intercourse with; "This student sleeps with everyone in her dorm"; "Adam knew Eve" (know is archaic); "Were you ever intimate with this man?" [syn: love, make out, make love, sleep with, get laid, have sex, know, do it, be intimate, have intercourse, have it away, have it off, screw, fuck, jazz, hump, lie with, bed, have a go at it, bang, get it on, bonk]

    So all this time, "Take a cold shower" actually meant..... Nevermind!

  • Copyright != Trademark (Score:3, Informative)

    by John Hasler ( 414242 ) on Tuesday August 12, 2003 @12:58PM (#6677526) Homepage
    > Oh, "Astro" was such a friendly name -- but it
    > probably had copyright issues.

    Please. Get it straight. Trademark, not copyright.

  • You just know... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by rarose ( 36450 ) <rob@ r o b a my.com> on Tuesday August 12, 2003 @01:05PM (#6677588)
    any chip named Efficeon is going to get beat up on the way to school for being a little fruity.

    --Freeword Associations--
    Athlon=Athletic
    Opteron=Optimal
    Pentium=Pent up energy
    Celeron=Celerity... or maybe Celebrity

    Efficeon=Efficient? That's a compliment like saying the fat girl has a good personality.

    • Celeron=Celerity... or maybe Celebrity

      More like Apium graveolens [oregonstate.edu].

      Efficeon=Efficient?

      As another user pointed out [slashdot.org], Efficeon sounds more like a fish [tamarindo.net]. Transmeta should have plundered classic literature again (like it did with Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe [ibiblio.org]), possibly taking the name "Nemo" from 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne [ibiblio.org]. Or maybe not [losingnemo.com].

      That's a compliment like saying the fat girl has a good personality.

      You didn't like Shallow Hal [imdb.com] either, I take it?

    • Celeron is probably taken from the Latin adjective celer, celeris, meaning quick (remember the Olympic motto- citius, altius, fortius- faster, higher, stronger? citius is the comparative form of celer, just as better is the comparative form of good). Hardly a good moniker for the reduced performance chip line :)

    • Re:You just know... (Score:3, Informative)

      by Jordy ( 440 )
      Weird things you find on Google:

      Duron = durare (Latin) "to last" + -on "unit"
      Opteron = optimus (Latin) "best" + -on "unit"
      Athlon = athlon (Greek) "prize"
      Celeron = celere (Latin) "quick" + -on "unit"
      Radion = "radiare" (Latin) "to emit light" + -on "unit"
      Pentium = pente (Greek) "five" + (marketspeak?)

      I'm guessing about Efficeon.. but:
      Efficeon = "efficiens" (Latin) "to produce"? + -on "unit"

  • From the English Language Ministry (Score:5, Funny)

    by giminy ( 94188 ) on Tuesday August 12, 2003 @01:09PM (#6677629) Homepage Journal
    what Transmeta is doing apres Linus

    The use of french words are no longer allowed in courriel^Wemail.

  • the name "Efficeon" (Score:3, Informative)

    by Maimun ( 631984 ) on Tuesday August 12, 2003 @01:10PM (#6677642)
    According to a this article [com.com], "Efficeon" was chosen because the former name violated the trademarks of an animation company, Hanna-Barbara. Strange, because these are unrelated products.
    • They probably didn't have the money to argue. It's not like they are actually selling many chips these days.

    • Famous trademarks (Score:2, Interesting)

      by yerricde ( 125198 )

      Strange, because these are unrelated products.

      Under U.S. law, A product name can still conflict with a completely unrelated product's trademarked name if the other trademark is a "famous trademark" as defined in the Trademark Dilution Act.

      Besides, another user pointed out [slashdot.org] that Motorola, a semiconductor company, sells a product called "Astro".

    • I guess they didn't want to step on their Astro (TM) turf.

  • You sure it's not the.... (Score:3, Funny)

    by Blenderkitty ( 622104 ) on Tuesday August 12, 2003 @01:15PM (#6677684)
    Transmeta Effaceon...The chip that hates itself.

    Powering an android near you soon.

  • DDR, eh? (Score:3, Funny)

    by yerricde ( 125198 ) on Tuesday August 12, 2003 @01:16PM (#6677693) Homepage Journal

    From the article:

    Additional features include the use of HyperTransport buses and support for fast double-data-rate (DDR) memory.

    So will I be able to turn it all the way up to "Max 300" [ddrfreak.com]?

  • ...because 'Astro' is, at the very least, a registered trademark for a series of Motorola digital radios and their corresponding voice/data network. [motorola.com]

  • Autobots for the 21st Century (Score:3, Funny)

    by NanoGator ( 522640 ) on Tuesday August 12, 2003 @01:23PM (#6677772) Homepage Journal
    Efficeon sounds like an Autobot that transforms into a flourescent bulb.

  • The new processor... runs damn cold! (Score:4, Funny)

    by rice_burners_suck ( 243660 ) on Tuesday August 12, 2003 @01:42PM (#6677990)
    Intel today announced its new 1024-bit (1 kilobit) microprocessor architecture technology. Named the Shiitakeum, Intel's new processor core boasts powerful new technologies which will enable content providers to deliver compelling enterprise solutions. The Shiitakeum has the following new features:
    • SingleAtom technology squeezes the entire processor into a single atom which contains over a million protons with modified quark structure. The instability caused by the enormous number of protons causes the processor to decompose with a half-life of under .000000000000000000000001 microseconds. The processor takes full advantage of this characteristic of heavy atoms and uses an antigravity-like technology to push the protons into the proper configuration. The processor executes its instructions through constant realignment of its protons.
    • The processing pipeline has been broken down into 299,792,458 discreet steps, enabling Intel to remove the internal clock altogether and run the processor at the speed of light. One "cycle" represents the absolute cosmic measure unit of time, and all operations occur in one cycle.
    • 24,856 new instructions have been added since the previous model, bringing the new total to over 72 trillion instructions. All SCO intellectual property can be programmed in one instruction, increasing SCO revenues due to legal action.
    • RAM has been depreciated. 4 exabytes of internal general-use registers allow software to make more efficient data access, providing a more compelling Internet experience.
    • Intel (r) AnswerNow (tm) Technology bends the space-time continuum, allowing the results of branch instructions and mathematical operations to be used before they are computed. The computations take place during idle cycles at some future time.
    • Intel (r) CodeSpirit (tm) Technology processes machine code by its spirit, rather than its letter, completely eliminating software bugs and preventing malicious code, such as a virus, from executing.
    • Intel (r) AlienCode (tm) Technology, based on CodeSpirit, allows users to execute programs written for any other processor, without previous knowledge of that processor's instruction set. The technology examines and "decyphers" the instructions and data in much the same way that scientists decypher written languages used by past civilizations. Via AnswerNow and CodeSpirit technologies, programs written for other processors actually run faster and better on Intel platforms than on their native processor. As a side effect, the processor now directly executes programs and scripts written in Java or any P-code or text-based language. In fact, even instructions spelled out in English are understood and executed by the processor.
    • Intel (r) BrainWaves (tm) Technology allows the processor to read and write information in the user's mind. The processor is given away for free, and based on the user's thoughts, targetted advertisements are inserted directly into the user's mind. The process is painless, and simply feels like a song stuck in your head. A nominal (i.e., expensive) fee can be paid daily to eliminate the advertisements.
    • Intel (r) NoPower (tm) Technology allows the processor to run by harnessing the energy present in the universe on a quantum scale. No electric current is required to operate the processor and since it consumes the energy present in the physical matter from which it is made, the processor absorbs all heat it might otherwise generate, operating as a perpetual energy source. This also causes the processor to run at 0 Kelvin, making it the coolest running processor ever released.
    Buy one today!

  • Availability? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by -tji ( 139690 ) on Tuesday August 12, 2003 @02:03PM (#6678254) Journal
    Hopefully this iteration will be more readily available than the previous chips.

    The transmeta chips have some great power/heat characteristics, and the ability to speed up / slow down based on load. These would be great for a small home linux server / gateway type device.. If there was someone making/selling this type of small/quiet/cool device.
  • They should have kept the "Astro" moniker and licensed the cartoon for the marketing.

    Oh, and fired thier lawyers. Trademark is difficult to enforce if the products are not in the same market or are marketed for unrelated usage.

  • "Oh, "Astro" was such a friendly name -- but it probably had trademark issues....

    (jetsons mode on)
    Rade-rark rissues....rut roh rastro...
    (jm off)

    Damn, your right.

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