From Subnotebooks To Toaster Ovens

Transmeta Corp.'s battery-thrifty Crusoe CPUs are best known for powering slimline subnotebooks and some of the new Tablet PCs, but now the company has stepped into the embedded-systems market with six Crusoe SE (Special Embedded) processors -- 667MHz, 800MHz, and 933MHz parts, each available in a standard or low-power version.

The low-heat-dissipation Crusoe SE chips use Transmeta's LongRun power-management technology to dynamically adjust frequency and voltage while monitoring chip temperature, keeping power use and heat at minimum levels with no need for a cooling fan -- even, the company says, in harsh environments where a chip's temperature can reach the boiling point (100 degrees C).