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Crusoe Cruises Ahead

Web pads and laptops sporting Transmeta chip may ship as soon as April.

By Alexandra Krasne, PCWorld   

The devices are closer (and cooler) than you think. They run one of two types of Crusoe chips--the TM3120 for mobile devices running up to 400 MHz and the TM5400 for laptops running up to 700 MHz.

Web pads may become available as soon as April, but more likely in June, says Frank Priscaro, Transmeta's director of brand development. He gave the preview to an enthralled crowd at the LinuxWorld Expo last week. S3 is the only vendor publicly signed up to manufacture Web pads running the Crusoe chips.

The Web pads, which will cost between $500 and $900, will feature wireless Internet access, a touch screen, and a stylus. They will run on the Mobile Linux operating system, which is a version of Linux created to run mobile Internet devices and handheld clients that lack hard drives.

Transmeta is working with vendors to get the 5400 chips on notebooks now, and the first releases will coincide with the Web pad release, Priscaro says.

Other devices coming down the pipeline include a thin mobile PC that will support a broadband connection, and a full-featured mobile PC that you'll be able to power down in sleep mode for almost two weeks, says Priscaro. A wearable PC could be another Crusoe-powered device you'll see in the future, Priscaro hinted.

He also describes a crash-proof computer. With the help of the Crusoe chips, you'll reboot and run your computer backward to the spot before it crashed. From there, you'll retrieve your data. Unfortunately, the first round of chips won't support that function.

On the Inside

Transmeta's Crusoe chips can run faster because they use software to imitate an x86 processor. Transmeta's programs save blocks of x86 instructions in a cache, like caching a Web page, for greater speed in retrieval.

Crusoes contain one-quarter the logic transistors Pentiums currently have. Because logic transistors generate electricity and heat, Crusoes will stay cooler and use less power. A 700-MHz Transmeta chip uses 1 watt of power to a Pentium III's 12-15 watts.

"I don't know if Intel is quivering," Priscaro says. "It's an awfully big company. But it doesn't have anything like [Crusoe]."

Devices running cooler and on less power are just two of the possibilities that Transmeta Crusoe chips (to be manufactured by IBM) will deliver.