Transmeta (Semiconductor) (TMTA)

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Dew, Re: I have by now read about 25 articles about what Banias will look like when it debuts next year. Not one of these articles has said anything about Banias having a “continuous” power capability similar to LongRun.

I haven't seen the technical docs on TMTA's Long Run, but it sounds like you are overestimating the technology. As the number of intermediate voltage levels expands, the return on power savings becomes much less. I have a small amount of experience in this area, and I know that in the end, whether you have 8 intermediate values or 128, you end up with nearly the same power savings. What's more important is the latency between these voltage changes, as it usually requires that the CPU enter a suspend mode and stop the processor clock for a small time before the reference voltage makes the actual change. This requires very complex logic, and I don't see why TMTA would complicate it with so many different voltage levels.

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