Comments on: | inoutside looking outin, part 1 | http://mikerucker.wordpress.com/2008/12/03/main-street-vs-wall-street-part-1/ a website from which your blocking software should have kept you Mon, 02 Nov 2009 16:40:04 +0000 http://wordpress.com/ hourly 1 By: mikerucker http://mikerucker.wordpress.com/2008/12/03/main-street-vs-wall-street-part-1/#comment-880 mikerucker Thu, 04 Dec 2008 19:27:34 +0000 http://mikerucker.wordpress.com/?p=1502#comment-880 afcagroo, thank you. my knowledge of transmeta is pretty deep - the analogy and the desire to keep it understandable perhaps made me a little careless in what i wrote. i think i actually read through all the patent violations back when the suit was filed against intel ... but thank you very much for commenting with such a ready-to-stick-it-in-the-lawsuit-and-hang-the-bastards explanation. -mr afcagroo, thank you. my knowledge of transmeta is pretty deep – the analogy and the desire to keep it understandable perhaps made me a little careless in what i wrote. i think i actually read through all the patent violations back when the suit was filed against intel … but thank you very much for commenting with such a ready-to-stick-it-in-the-lawsuit-and-hang-the-bastards explanation.

-mr

]]> By: afcagroo http://mikerucker.wordpress.com/2008/12/03/main-street-vs-wall-street-part-1/#comment-879 afcagroo Thu, 04 Dec 2008 18:04:09 +0000 http://mikerucker.wordpress.com/?p=1502#comment-879 You write "this patented technology allowed microprocessors to conserve electricity and actually get more things done during each beat of the clock." It appears that you have only a superficial understanding of Transmeta's key patents, which do not generally do what you describe. Transmeta's LongRun(tm) technology allows a processor to monitor its workload dynamically. If the processor sees that it is not being 100% utilized, it "tells" the circuit board it is on to reduce the microprocessor's operating voltage and frequency, which together determine the microprocessor's power consumption. When it subsequently detects that more computing horsepower is required, it tells the circuit board to increase the voltage/frequency. These changes can be done incrementally (in different step sizes) and rapidly (many times per second, limited by the power supply's responsiveness). Rather than doing "more in each clock", LongRun allows the microprocessor to do LESS processing while accomplishing that which is required. This saves power overall, but essentially by doing the opposite of what you described. The long-term processing per unit of time is reduced, not increased. The amount of processing per clock cycle is pretty much held constant. Now go on-line and read a description of Intel's SpeedStep(tm) technology. AMD and Nvidia, as well as others, have similar techniques that go by various names. To try to fit it into your analogy...why work constantly at the level required to clean out a 4-car garage, when some of the time you are cleaning out a 4-car garage, some of the time you are tidying up a carport, and some of the time you are hanging around drinking beer? Humans don't work constantly at one "speed", and computers don't have to either. Both can adapt work output to the perceived urgency, and thus minimize overall energy expenditures. Transmeta also holds some other key patents that are not necessarily related to LongRun or even to power management. If you really want to understand what IP they have, you could start by reading the filing from the Intel lawsuit. (They own other IP also, but the lawsuit would be a good starting place.) You write “this patented technology allowed microprocessors to conserve electricity and actually get more things done during each beat of the clock.”

It appears that you have only a superficial understanding of Transmeta’s key patents, which do not generally do what you describe. Transmeta’s LongRun(tm) technology allows a processor to monitor its workload dynamically. If the processor sees that it is not being 100% utilized, it “tells” the circuit board it is on to reduce the microprocessor’s operating voltage and frequency, which together determine the microprocessor’s power consumption. When it subsequently detects that more computing horsepower is required, it tells the circuit board to increase the voltage/frequency. These changes can be done incrementally (in different step sizes) and rapidly (many times per second, limited by the power supply’s responsiveness). Rather than doing “more in each clock”, LongRun allows the microprocessor to do LESS processing while accomplishing that which is required. This saves power overall, but essentially by doing the opposite of what you described. The long-term processing per unit of time is reduced, not increased. The amount of processing per clock cycle is pretty much held constant.

Now go on-line and read a description of Intel’s SpeedStep(tm) technology. AMD and Nvidia, as well as others, have similar techniques that go by various names.

To try to fit it into your analogy…why work constantly at the level required to clean out a 4-car garage, when some of the time you are cleaning out a 4-car garage, some of the time you are tidying up a carport, and some of the time you are hanging around drinking beer? Humans don’t work constantly at one “speed”, and computers don’t have to either. Both can adapt work output to the perceived urgency, and thus minimize overall energy expenditures.

Transmeta also holds some other key patents that are not necessarily related to LongRun or even to power management. If you really want to understand what IP they have, you could start by reading the filing from the Intel lawsuit. (They own other IP also, but the lawsuit would be a good starting place.)

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