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That was Transmeta, which became Nvidia's Project Denver. I think the show stopper is that they were unable to acquire an x86 license. Anyway, it actually ran
by PeCaN 10y ago
That was Transmeta, which became Nvidia's Project Denver. I think the show stopper is that they were unable to acquire an x86 license.
Anyway, it actually ran neither (the core is more like Itanium) and had a separate chip that JIT compiled ARM and x86 to the internal ISA.
- gsnedders 10y agoAs far as I'm aware, none of Transmeta's x86 stuff became Project Denver. There was definitely licensing of Transmeta technologies, but I believe that was relatively generally applicable patents (well, generally applicable to ICs). There was, however, given the relative size of the semiconductor industry, some ex-Transmeta staff working on Project Denver. But yes, as far as I'm aware, what killed the x86 support was licensing.
- PeCaN 10y agoProject Denver still JITs ARM to an internal VLIW architecture I believe. It's pretty Transmeta-like.
- gsnedders 10y agoYes, they do. And the influence of Transmeta is clearly there, even if it's not a direct descendent. Ultimately the x86 licensing issue just killed the x86 decode step, AFAIK.