Your Computer Is About To Get Smaller
Transmeta's Fuel-Efficient Chip Brings Us Closer To Sci-Fi Visions Of Computing On The Go
Transmeta is the company from Santa Clara, Calif., that just announced it intends to build a new brain for laptops, palmtops and other portable computers and the emerging Internet appliances.
The brain of the computer is the central processing unit or CPU. Transmeta's got a software-based CPU that is unique for its combination of high performance and low power consumption -- traits that are crucial for truly mobile computing.
Transmeta's chips will lead to a revolution in the way consumers use computers and the Internet. Why? Transmeta's designs represent true innovation. There's been much progress made in CPU designs over the past several years as chips have gotten faster, but there's been no real innovation. There's a difference.
Big For Bigness' Sake
For years, hardware progress has been charted against Moore's Law, the observation of Intel engineer Gordon Moore that computer power doubles every 18 to 24 months. Moore stated his "law" in 1965, and it's been a remarkable barometer for CPU achievement ever since. In 1971, Intel's chips had 2,300 transistors. Today's Pentium II has 7.5 million. In other words, computing power has soared like a skyrocket on the Fourth of July.
How? Intel and other manufacturers have figured out new ways to put more and more transistors into computer chips, and more transistors means more power -- they put out more power in terms of what the chip can do, and they require more electrical power to work.
That's progress, which is good, but it isn't innovation, that moment when a new idea means a true leap forward in capabilities.
Let's say an Intel Pentium chip is like a Ford Explorer SUV.
If you're the manufacturer, and you want to make the product bigger and faster, you build a bigger engine, put it in a bigger body, and presto: Ford's got the Expedition and Intel has the Pentium II, both of which require far more "gas" to run.
But if you're Ford, or Intel, your marketing plan says you need to introduce something bigger and faster to drive sales higher and higher.
So you make an even larger body, equip it with an even larger engine, and voila: You've built the Excursion/Pentium III, which requires even larger amounts of gas to run.
Now Intel has its next generation Itanium chip on the drawing boards (I shudder to think what the step up from an Excursion would be -- possibly the urban assault vehicle from "Stripes"?) and guess what? It'll be bigger and faster and require more power.
Neglecting The Basics
I'm not saying bigger, more powerful CPUs are a bad thing. I am saying that pushing processor design limits simply to hype sales is a bad thing, particularly if there are other consequences for customers.In the case of Intel, it's introduced newer and faster processors over the last months, while unable to meet the demand for CPUs for its major clients. If Nero fiddled while Rome burned, Intel tinkered while its major clients suffered. Dell, Gateway, Micron and others didn't need faster processors -- they just needed CPUs, period. And Intel couldn't deliver. The result? Profits are down for some of the largest computer manufacturers, including Dell and Gateway, and computer prices to consumers have increased for the first time in years.
Less Power In, More Power Out
Transmeta has entered the scene with its version of "a better idea" -- that computer chips for mobile computing should use less power so that portable devices can be smaller and get more "mileage" from batteries.How do you make a chip more "fuel-efficient"? Make it with fewer transistors.
How do you make it as powerful as a chip that has more transistors? Use software to replicate all the hardware functions eliminated with those "surplus" transistors.
It's really quite simple. A transistor (left) is the building block of an electronic device. When assembled in the correct order, transistors form electronic circuits, but each of those transistors also produces heat, which is really nothing but wasted battery power. If you think of a CPU chip as a grid of light bulbs, the more light bulbs you have, the more light the chip puts out, but it also produces more heat, and your power bill goes up. Transmeta's design uses fewer light bulbs, which means lower power consumption. Transmeta uses software instructions to replicate the functions of the missing bulbs. Think of the software instructions as a mirror which increases light output without an increase in power consumption or heat.
That's Transmeta's innovation -- making a powerful chip for mobile devices that uses about a tenth of the power of a comparable Intel chip.
Importance Of Portability
It's a big deal. Industry research firm IDC says sales of Internet devices will surpass sales of PCs by the year 2002. The shift will come more because of purchasing decisions by individual consumers than businesses. Transmeta will challenge Intel, AMD, Motorola and others in a market that'll be larger than PC sales in just two years.
How consumers will use portable Internet devices has already been imagined long ago in classic sci-fi. In the movie "2001: A Space Odyssey," astronaut Frank Poole eats a breakfast of food paste and scans the day's news from the BBC while on his way to Jupiter. The news is displayed on a screen about the size of a standard sheet of paper that's being fed images from the ship's computer.
Next year is the real year 2001, and that could be you (hopefully without the food paste and the trip to Jupiter). Just like the movie, your Web pad will be wireless and get its signals directly from the Internet, or through your home computer acting as a server. It'll be a color display, easy enough to read and hold while drinking coffee and eating your morning meal.
Devices like this will be possible when CPUs can run high-powered programs without requiring large amounts of battery power -- and that's exactly what the Transmeta chip does.
Just remember: If your handheld Internet appliance asks you to make antenna adjustments, get out of the house immediately! (Click for sound clip)
Turning To The Mailbag
In the last installment of this column, we mused about the possible ramifications of Motorola's plans to make a fuel cell for laptops and cell phones that would be powered by alcohol. Some of you were enthused by the possibilities.Arnold L. Johnson from Oakwood Village, Ohio thought the advent of alcohol as a fuel for high-tech gadgets could stimulate other parts of the economy. He e-mailed:
"You're very cynical about new tech at times. But your views on fuel cells aren't stretched far enough. Imagine a fuel cell in every vehicle and building for folks who want to go online. (Imagine) the boom in materials to make alcohol stills and containment enclosures. Perhaps kits to convert your Y2K survival shelter into a home refueling station -- like having a gas station every other house. Besides the gray market fuel sales, there are the fuel tasters and sniffers to worry about."
But the extra jobs could be outweighed by the risks, Johnson concluded: "The neighborhood starts to look like the flats, with flame plumes and toxic vapor that is 'harmless and odorless.' The housefire is replaced by the house explosion. The bunny-battery company goes belly up, and after the EPA closes the whole thing down, the livable areas of the U.S. are considered a brownfield. We all are evacuated to the desert to wonder why the Mayans disappeared."
Sounds like the Harkonnen homeworld, Giedi Prime, from Frank Herbert's "Dune." Or like Peking, as it was called during the last years of Mao and "The Great Leap Forward" -- nothing like a coal-burning blast furnace in every backyard to muck up the environment. I'd hate to think we're headed down that road.
Roger Malsby of Moreno Valley, Calif., wrote:
"Technology is great and it ties all of us up 25 hours a day. I'm all in favor of going back to the abacus. "
The good and the bad sometimes go hand-in-hand when it comes to technology. I'm not suggesting we pause, or go backwards, but that we think about where we're going. There are some great new technologies on the horizon -- I just hope that scientists remember that some of those technologies need to be "sold" to the public if they are to become successful. Nuclear power generation comes to mind as a technology that certainly lost the P.R. battle.
Joseph McLaughlin took the subject more seriously. He wrote:
"It's funny that you'd find miniature fuel-cell technology dangerous. Some of the examples you cite are not fuel cells, and in any case, all of your examples are on a very large scale. The fuel cell Motorola is developing would contain less fuel than a butane lighter. Something like one cubic centimeter of methane has enough energy to run a cell phone for six months, even if energy conversion is only 10 percent.
"Motorola is not the only one interested in this sort of technology ... There's a lot of research right now on MEMS combustors -- Micro-Electro Mechanical Systems. The idea is to build little combustion-driven electrical-power generators that could replace batteries. The military is extremely interested in this technology to replace the batteries that ground troops carry around.
"If either miniature fuel cells or MEMS generators can be made, they will last longer and be lighter, almost assuring that they will completely replace the batteries we use today."
My meaning was not that fuel cells are dangerous, but that they're perceived as dangerous because of numerous incidents I related. Unfortunately, Some of that perception business was softened in the editing process.
Bruce A. McKnight, meanwhile, wasn't laughing a bit:
"I began reading your article on the use of fuel cells in cell phones and laptops. I was disappointed to find no real information, only meandering musings and complaints. Would you please preface future articles with 'IMHO'?"
I guess I've always assumed that, since the column runs with my mugshot and byline, people know the articles are an expression of my personality and opinions. I have no complaint with them being labeled as such, but do I have to be humble, too? I don't know if I can handle that.
--Tom Egan has worked the information business from photography and journalism to video production and online editing. He writes about technology from his home in Saint Paul, Minn., within three blocks of four bars that serve Guinness on tap.
