Transmeta Crusoe

The Crusoe is a VLIW microprocessor that executes bundles of instructions, termed molecules by Transmeta.

Instructions that meet a set of conditions can be executed simultaneously and are combined to form a 64- or 128-bit molecule containing two or four atoms, respectively.

This is required in all VLIW architectures and is criticised for being inefficient, which is why there are molecules of two separate lengths.

The relative simplicity of the hardware means that Crusoe consumes less power (and therefore generates less heat) than other x86-compatible microprocessors running at the same frequency.

[1] The Crusoe was initially available in two forms: the TM3120 (later called TM3200) for embedded applications and the TM5400 for low-power personal computing.

[9] The TM5500/TM5800 are die shrunk versions of the TM5400/5600 Built on a TSMC 130 nm process at clock frequencies of 667-1000 MHz.

IBM fabricated the Crusoe in a 0.18 μm CMOS process with five levels of copper interconnect.

[16] As of 2022, most browsers on Windows and Linux, and some other programs, need SSE or SSE2 support;[17] therefore, that software will no longer run on the Crusoe platform.

For example, Firefox dropped support for systems without SSE2 in 2017,[18] although K-Meleon could run without SSE on Windows XP.