Marc Fleischmann
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RisingTide Systems

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Bio

Marc Fleischmann's profile on LinkedIn 		Marc Fleischmann is CEO and Co-Founder of RisingTide Systems (a privately held IP storage startup), a Co-Founder of LiSoG (Europe's largest non-profit Linux ecosystem hub), and a board member and investor in a number of high-tech companies.

Earlier, Marc built Pixelworks' (Nasdaq:PXLW) $120M TV business. As SVP Engineering and GM of the TV BU, he helped growing the company from $60M in 2002 to $200M in 2005. Prior to Pixelworks, Marc helped building Transmeta as Executive Director of Software. He led their their low-power R&D and executed key design wins at Sony, Fujitsu and NEC that were launched in Q3 2000. Transmeta went public in November 2000. In 2007, Marc served as a strategic advisor to Transmeta in patent litigation that Intel settled for $250M. Before Transmeta, Marc was an OS Architect at Hewlett-Packard Labs (NYSE:HPQ). Earlier, Marc built IMF, a PC systems company in Germany, acquired by Atos Origin.

Marc grew up in Germany and lived in France and Italy. He holds B.S. and M.S. degrees in business and engineering from University of Karlsruhe, along with a number of patents in CPU and software technologies. He has been widely recognized for his groundbreaking work on low-power microprocessor technologies. «

Self-portrait

Pixelworks

Awards

 Here's a brief history of Pixelworks company and product awards:
  • 2004 Oregon Technology Company of the Year (publicly traded, less than $250 million)
  • 2004 Oregon Community Involvement Award
  • 2004 Teddy Award presented by Oregon Governor Ted Kulongowski
  • 40th Fastest Growing Company on 2003 Deloitte Technology Fast 500 List
  • 2002 Oregon Technology Executive of the Year
  • 22th Fastest Growing Company on 2002 Deloite Technology Fast 500 List
  • 2001 Ernst & Young's Pacific Northwest Technology Entrepreneur of the Year
  • 2001 Fabless Semiconductor Association Financial Performance Award
  • 2001 Oregon Entrepreneur Forum Technology Company of the Year
  • 2001 Fastest Growing Public Company in Oregon
  • Top performing company in Deloitte & Touche's 2001 Oregon Technology Fast 50
  • 2000 Oregon Technology Company of the Year
  • 2000-2004 Oregon DisplayMate Best Video Hardware Award, Scalers and ImageProcessors for Monitors and Projectors
  • 1999 SID Information Display Magazine Display Material or Component of the Year (DMCY) Gold Award «

Transmeta

Awards

 Transmeta, the Crusoe microprocessor or products that were based on it have received a range of high-profile awards, including:
  • 2002 Editor's Choice for NEC PowerMate eco (PC Magazine)
  • 2001 Best Notebook and Best of Show for Fujitsu LifeBook P (Comdex)
  • 2001 Best of Show for Fujitsu FMV-Biblo Loox T (TECHXNY)
  • 2001 Best of Show for Fujitsu Loox S (World PC Expo)
  • 2001 Best of Show in Innovative Computer Hardware and Software category (CES)
  • 2001 Product of the Year (PC Expert magazine, France)
  • 2001 Most Innovative Technology (PC Professional magazine, Germany)
  • 2000 Most Respected Private Fabless Company (Fabless Semiconductor Association)
  • 2000 Company of the Year (Smart Business magazine)
  • 2000 Best Emerging Technology (Mobile Computing & Communications magazine) «

Patents

 The patents that have issued so far are:
  • 6,968,469: System and method for preserving internal processor context when the processor is powered down, and restoring the internal processor context when processor is restored
  • 7,100,061, 7,596,708: Adaptive Power Control
  • 7,730,330: System and method for saving and restoring a processor state without executing any instructions from a first instruction set

Press Coverage

 Here's some of the press coverage on Transmeta, until I gave up following it...

Transmeta / Intel Litigation
  • Transmeta Triumphs. Forbes, New York, October 23, 2007 [online]
  • Intel to pay $250M in Transmeta truce. Yahoo Finance, San Francisco, October 24, 2007 [online]
  • Intel, Transmeta settle patent dispute. WSJ, New York, October 24, 2007 [online]
  • Transmeta shares soar on patent settlement with Intel. Reuters, New York, October 24, 2007 [online]
  • Transmeta settles litigation with Intel. Marketwatch, New York, October 24, 2007 [online]
  • Transmeta announces settlement of patent litigation, technology transfer and license agreement with Intel. Yahoo, Santa Clara, October 24, 2007 [online]

Personal features:
Quotes
Interviews
Clips
...and more

  • Mit Crusoe gegen Intel. Bayern 5 aktuell, Computermagazin (radio interview), Munich, October 7, 2001
  • Schöne, geteilte Welt - Hitech: Neue Chancen für alle. Hamburger Abendblatt, p. 22, Hamburg, March 24/25, 2001
  • Cover story: Crusoe treibt Server und neue All-day-Notebooks. VDI nachrichten, pp. 1 & 39, Düsseldorf, March 23, 2001 [online]
  • Crusoe im Luxusbett. c't Magazine, 26/2000, pp. 84-85, Hannover, December 2000
  • Cover story: Crusoe's race towards 1W. Nikkei Electronics Magazine, pp. 131-165, Tokyo, March 13, 2000 [online]
  • Crusoe at PC Expo. ASAhi, No. 271, pp. 14-15, Tokyo, August 1, 2000
  • The innovative Crusoe Microprocessor. ASAhi, No. 269, p. 15, Tokyo, July 1, 2000
  • Das Projekt Zukunft fordert den Einsatz rund um die Uhr. Computer Channel, San Francisco, August 1, 2000
  • Top Vendors Adopt Crusoe. Microprocessor Report, San Jose, July 10, 2000 [PDF]
  • Transmeta steigt ins Server-Geschäft ein. Computer Channel, San Francisco, July 5, 2000
  • Transmeta nimmt Kurs auf den Server-Markt. Computer Channel, San Francisco, July 4, 2000
  • Transmeta chips to make air travel safer. The Register, London, July 2000 [online]
  • Transmeta inside. Wired Magazine, 8(7):174-186, San Francisco, July 2000 [online]
  • The incredible shrinking computer. On: NY1 (CNN) (TV interview), New York, June 30, 2000 [online]
  • Die Herausforderer. Capital, 13/2000, pp. 71-76, Köln, June 16, 2000
  • Low power: The new battlegound. Electronic News, San Jose, June 2000
  • Cover story: Transmeta's magic show. IEEE Spectrum, 37(5):26-33, New York, May 2000 [online]
  • Zu neuen Ufern. c't Magazine, Hannover, January 27, 2000 [online] [shlashdotted]
  • Transmeta Introduces Pentium-like Crusoe Chip. Computer World, Framingham, January 24, 2000
  • Analysis: Crusoe is a CPU for the road. CNN, Atlanta, January 21, 2000
  • Transmeta goes Moble Linux. CNET, Hong Kong, January 21, 2000
  • Transmeta revs up own version of Linux. CNET, Atlanta, January 20, 2000 [online]
  • Crusoe: A CPU for the Road. PC World, San Francisco, January 20, 2000 [list] «

Low-power technology
  • At last, a laptop that sips juice. Business Week, New York, October 23, 2000
  • A silicon chameleoon challenges Intel. Business Week, New York, May 29, 2000
  • Transmeta wins $88 million from AOL, others. CNET, Atlanta, April 24, 2000 [online]
  • Crusoes Insel. c't Magazine, Hannover, March 13, 2000 [online]
  • Cover story: This could change everything. Red Herring, No. 76, pp. 112-126, San Francicso, March 2000
  • Cover story: Transmeta breaks x86 low-power barrier. Microprocessor Report, San Jose, February 14, 2000
  • LongRun is to Transmeta's Advantage. Byte, Manhasset, January 31, 2000
  • Intel's SpeedStep is not worth the money. eWeek, San Francisco, January 31, 2000 [online]
  • Transmeta transforms processors. Inter@ctive Week, San Francisco, January 27, 2000
  • Thumbs up or down on Transmeta? PC Week, San Francisco, January 25, 2000 [online]
  • Transmeta's mobile crusade. Electronic Buyer's News, San Francisco, January 21, 2000 [online]
  • Don't leave home without your Net. Financial Post, Washington, January 21, 2000
  • Crusoe Explored - LongRun. Ars Technica, New York, January 20, 2000 [online]
  • Crusoe chip - the verdict. BBC News, London, January 20, 2000
  • New Design for Processor to Test Intel. New York Times, New York, January 20, 2000 [online]
  • New chip is fast mover. BBC News, London, January 19, 2000
  • Crusoe tritt ins Rampenlicht. c't Magazine, Hannover, January 19, 2000 [online]
  • Transmeta unveils new speedy chips. MSNBC, New York, January 19, 2000
  • Transmeta takes wraps off Crusoe. PC Week, San Francisco, January 19, 2000
  • Transmeta unveils Crusoe chip. PC World, San Francisco, January 19, 2000
  • Transmeta unveils new powerful computer chips. S.J. Mercury News, San Jose, January 19, 2000
  • Transmeta's Crusoe: How it works. ZDNet, San Francisco, January 19, 2000
  • Bleib cool, Crusoe. Die Zeit, Hamburg, January 24, 2000 «

Crusoe in general
  • Crusoe Premiere. c't Magazine, 22/2000, pp. 112-113, Hannover, November 2000
  • Transmetamorphosis. The Economist, London, January 24, 2000
  • Revolutionärer Öko-Chip. Sonntagszeitung, Zürich, January 23, 2000 [online]
  • Transmeta: overview of ZD coverage. ZDNet, San Francisco, January 21, 2000
  • Neuer Chip hält Laptops fit. Focus, München, January 20, 2000
  • The Transmeta energizer. Salon Magazine, San Jose, January 20, 2000 [online]
  • Crusoe finding some homes. Wired News, San Francisco, January 20, 2000 [online]
  • Transmeta shoots for 700 MHz with new chip. ABC News, New York, January 19, 2000 [online]
  • Silicon Secrets. ABC News, New York, January 19, 2000 [online]
  • Transmeta Transmeta unveils Crusoe chips. Computer World, San Francisco, January 19, 2000
  • Transmeta: Revolution in Action. The Linley Group, Mountain View, January 19, 2000 [online]
  • Should Intel be paranoid about Transmeta? Red Herring, San Francisco, January 19, 2000 [online]
  • Secretive Transmeta unveils Crusoe chip family. On: Reuters, London, January 19, 2000
  • Revolution oder Reinfall? Der Spiegel, Hamburg, January 20, 2000 [online]
  • Held in Tennissocken. Der Spiegel, Hamburg, January 24, 2000 [online]
  • Transmeta Unveils New Chips In Ambitious Bid to Take on Intel. Wall Street Journal, New York, January 22, 2000 [cache]
  • Crusoe chips land on Intel turf. Wired News, San Francisco, January 19, 2000 [online]
  • Transmeta locking with IBM. Wired News, San Francisco, January 19, 2000 [online]
  • It's the software, stupid. MSNBC, New York, January 18, 2000 «

Pre-launch
  • Patent hints at Transmeta's plans. EE-Times, San Francisco, November 13, 1998 [online]
  • Top secret chip less secret now. CNet, San Francisco, November 13, 1998 [online]
  • Transmeta. Red Herring, San Francisco, September 1998 [online]
  • The Herring 100: List of the top 50 public and top 50 private companies. Red Herring, San Francisco, September 1998 [online]
  • News Analysis: Signs Show 'Wintel' Axis Is Beginning to Wobble. New York Times, New York, August 31, 1998 [cache]
  • For the love of Hacking. Forbes, New York, August 10, 1998
  • The Transmeta Enigma. Salon Magazine, San Jose, May 22, 1998 [online]
  • Amid Mixed Profit Reports, Intel Talks of Its Fastest Chip. New York Times, New York, October 15, 1997 [cache] «

Hewlett-Packard

Laboratories
My research agenda was the architecture of highly available distributed computer systems.

Network attached storage devices

 My last project at HPL was to apply my distributed systems experience to create network attached storage devices (NASDs), which was both a project within the Storage Systems Program, and an industry consortium. The basic idea of NASDs is to architecturally split traditional computer systems at the boundaries of persistent storage, and thereby, conceptually, create an independent "utility" of persistent storage. This storage utility serves the residual CPU+RAM clients ("cyberbricks") via a storage area network (SAN), which then allows to schedule the cyberbrick resources over the storage utility. Finally, virtualization of the storage allows to push storage management policies beneath the API of the storage utility, and thereby supplies the enabler technology to off-load those policies from the cyberbricks.

Eventually, this core technology enables self-managing storage, which holds the promise of substantially reducing the complexity and cost of storage systems management. For instance, we believed that our technology could offer inexpensive solutions to current storage management headaches, such as automatic backup, incremental growth and disaster recovery. Oh well, little did we know... «

Distributed shared memory

 Architecting and implementing highly available, distributed operating systems has always been oddly fascinating to me.

So in 1994, we decided to go ahead and create an HP-UX® kernel DSM. The resulting prototype is described in Design and Implementation of a Distributed Shared Memory for the HP-UX Kernel [PDF], which also turned out to be my Master's Thesis.

Since then, we've extended this HP-UX® HP-UX kernel DSM prototype over multiple revisions in order to make it highly available. For the latest HP-UX kernel DSM revision, Prof. Brett D. Fleisch, the principal author of the Mirage+ DSM, spent his 1996 sabbatical with the Post Modern Operating Environment Team. «

Network protocols

 Also, while developing the HP-UX kernel DSM prototype, the existing Internet protocol suite seemed increasingly inadequate to serve the requirements of high-speed kernel to kernel communication. We needed a semantically lean mechanism to reliably transfer scattered memory segments over arbitrary networks. Well, after all, this was HPL, so I went ahead and implemented such a mechanism, called Hobbit. Hobbit is a reliable datagram protocol for simple inter- and intra-kernel communication (Jon Postel called reliable datagram protocols an oxymoron, but in practice they actually work surprisingly well). «

Musings

 Finally, I decided that with the dawning of the Internet era, all physical controls ought to be virtualized. So why not start with the ones that forced me to wander through HPL's giant sea of cubicles every night - the switches for the ceiling lights?

Easy enough, HPL had one of those huge General Electric lighting panels, relay driven and with basic programmability. So I devoted my infinite spare time to wire up those ancient relay banks to the serial port of our department server via a bus converter. Then I created ormazd, the demon of light, and set up a web server and CGI scripts to allow processing lighting requests from client applets and lighting web pages over the Internet. Eventually, this system even supported bookmarking individual lighting preferences.

Of course, I had too much fun with this to stop with my area - I ended up hooking up all six HPL buildings of the 1501 Page Mill facilities in Palo Alto, including Bill Hewlett's and Dave Packard's original offices.

In the end, HP got to replicate this system across the continent, and I got three patents:

  • 5,945,993: Pictograph-based method and apparatus for controlling a plurality of lighting loads
  • 6,118,230: Lighting control system including server for receiving and processing lighting control requests
  • 6,160,359: Apparatus for communicating with a remote computer to control an assigned lighting load «

Consulting

LiSoG

 In late 2004, we realized the need for an independent, solutions-oriented and business-driven Linux norming organization in Europe. So in 2005, with kind support from the MFG, we inaugurated the Linux Solutions Group (LiSoG) in Stuttgart, Germany. LiSoG has grown to 85 active members in Germany, Switzerland and Austria, including HP, IBM, MySQL, Novell, RedHat, Siemens, T-Systems, eight universities and the states of Baden-Wuerttemberg and Bavaria. «

Linux/390

 As Linux was maturing, it began generating a unique opportunity for server infrastructure consolidation on mainframes, and hence, the potential for significant total operating cost reduction. Besides, the idea of running Linux on the big S/390 iron seemed pretty cool.

So in 1999, Linus Torvalds and I worked with IBM to put Linux on the IBM S/390 family and open source its architectural support - thus, Linux/390 was born. This project transformed IBM and made industry history - IBM deployed Linux as their primary operating system across virtually all of their hardware platforms. This was far more successful than anyone of us would have dreamed back then! «

Bibliography
  • Marc Fleischmann. Ensuring the quality of the video signal path. HDTV Forum 2004, Los Angeles, August 26, 2004
  • Marc Fleischmann. Picture perfect - Experience the richness of reality. HDTV Forum 2003, Los Angeles, November 13, 2003
  • Marc Fleischmann. Keynote: Microprocessor architectures for the mobile Internet era. International Conference on Architecture of Computing Systems (ARCS 2002), Karlsruhe, Germany, April 10, 2002 [PDF]
  • Marc Fleischmann. Invited talk: Innovatives Energiemanagement bei Mikroprozessoren. Voted best speaker. 5. Handelsblatt-Jahrestagung, Halbleiter-Industrie 2001, Dresden, Germany, September 27, 2001 [PDF]
  • Marc Fleischmann. Keynote: Mobile processors - new devices need new technologies. Chaired panel discussion: Who needs the Mobile Gigahertz? Mobile Convergence Conference, Lisbon, Portugal, July 9, 2001 [PDF]
  • Marc Fleischmann. Crusoe - a low-power microprocessor for the Internet era. CeBit 2001, Hannover, Germany, March 24, 2001 [PDF]
  • Marc Fleischmann. Low-power microprocessor design for the Internet era. Platform 2001 Winter, Taipei, Taiwan, February 15, 2001 [PDF]
  • Marc Fleischmann. Low-power microprocessor design for the Internet era. Platform 2001 Winter, San Jose, January 23/24, 2001 [PDF]
  • Marc Fleischmann. Invited talk: The Crusoe low-power architecture. IEEE Micro-33, Kool Chips Workshop, Monterey, December 10, 2000 [PDF]
  • Marc Fleischmann. Invited talk: Microprocessor outlook for a new era. Participated in panel discussion: Microprocessor outlook for a new era. Phoenix Strategy 2001, Pebble Beach, November 19, 2000 [PDF]
  • Marc Fleischmann. Crusoe - a low-power microprocessor for the Internet era. E-Source, Colorado Springs, November 13, 2000 [PDF]
  • Marc Fleischmann. Reducing x86 operating power through LongRun. Best Paper Award. IEEE 12th Hot Chips Symposium, Stanford University, Palo Alto, August 15, 2000 [PDF]
  • Marc Fleischmann. LongRun adaptive power management technology for mobile platforms. Platform 2000 Summer, San Jose, July 18,2000 [PDF]
  • Marc Fleischmann. Crusoe power management. Voted best presentation. Participated in Future of the Microprocessor panel discussion. Embedded Processor Forum, San Jose, June 14, 2000 [PDF] [Press Release] [MPR]
  • Marc Fleischmann. Crusoe power management. Nikkei Electronics Design 2000 Conference, Yokohama, Japan, May 30, 2000 [PDF]
  • Marc Fleischmann. LongRun adaptive power control. Compaq Western Research Lab, Palo Alto, February 4, 2000 [PDF]
  • Marc Fleischmann. LongRun adaptive power management technology for mobile platforms. Platform 2000 Winter, San Jose, January 26, 2000 [PDF]
  • Crusoe product launch. Participated in engineering Q&A session, together with Linus Torvalds. World-wide web-cast by ZDTV, about 12 million viewers. Los Gatos, January 19, 2000
  • Marc Fleischmann. Invited talk: Linux im Groβunternehmen. IBM Arbeitskreis Hochverfügbarkeit, Berlin, Germany, October 1, 1999 [PDF]
  • Marc Fleischmann. LongRun Power Management - Dynamic Power Management for Crusoe Processors. Whitepaper, Transmeta Corp., January 17, 2001 [PDF]
  • Marc Fleischmann. Mit Fehlern leben - Hochverfügbarkeit. iX 11/1998, pp. 182-185, November 1998 «