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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Jim McMannis who wrote (80197)	11/17/1999 12:54:00 AM
From: tejek	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1570558

Secretive Silicon Valley firm works on "smart" chip By Therese Poletti LAS VEGAS, Nov 16 (Reuters) - Transmeta Corp., one of Silicon Valley's most secretive start-up companies, is working on what it says is a "smart" microprocessor, and more details will be coming Jan. 19, its most famous employee told the giant Comdex computer show here. Linus Torvalds, the creator of the increasingly popular Linux operating system who also works at Transmeta, disclosed a few details at the tail end of his keynote address at the Comdex show on Monday night with one paragraph in his slides to describe what Transmeta does. Torvalds said he could not provide any further details. Following the keynote address, Transmeta's Web site was updated to say that it will be releasing a processor called the "Crusoe." "We rethought the processor to create a whole new world of mobility," the company says on its Web site. Up until Monday night, the company's Website has said, "This Web page is not here yet! ... but it is Y2K compliant." Speculation has been rife in recent weeks that Torvalds would disclose some details on what Transmeta is doing at Comdex. Many in both the semiconductor industry and the Linux community are keenly interested in what the company is doing, because there is widespread speculation that Transmeta's with a processor could compete with the dominant family of chips from Intel Corp. <INTC.O>. One industry source said that if the product works, it will pose a serious threat to Intel. But, unlike Intel's archrival Advanced Micro Devices Inc. <AMD.N> in Sunnyvale, Calif., Transmeta is not working on its own version of Intel's core microprocessor design, the source said. Another semiconductor industry source who asked not to be identified said Transmeta is tying a big portion of functionality of the processor to the software, which is possibly what Torvalds is doing at the company. "It has a very streamlined design and because of that versatile design, it can be made to look like almost any processor," said the industry source. "The idea is to make it almost chameleon-like in nature. It consumes a limited amount of power and it can mimic any processor out there. If you could mimic any processor, who would you want to mimic?" Torvalds has never disclosed what exactly he is doing at Transmeta and the company's founder and chief executive David Ditzel, is also keeping mum. Ditzel, a former Sun Microsystems Inc. <SUNW.O> chip designer, could not be immediately reached for further comment on the Crusoe processor. The company was founded about four years ago by Ditzel. It includes among its investors Microsoft Corp. <MSFT.O> co-founder Paul Allen, billionaire investor George Soros, venture capital firms Institutional Venture Partners, Integral Capital Partners, Tudor Investments and others. One industry source said Transmeta has raised between $80 million to $100 million in several rounds of venture capital financing and also estimated the company's current valuation at about $450 million. "I think this could be a successful IPO," said the source. "I suspect that if they can start shipping product, and they can get some tier one accounts, it would be soon thereafter (that they go public) ... it could very well be next year." Earlier this week, Redherring.com, a Web site for Red Herring magazine, reported that Transmeta's microprocessor was being aimed at Internet appliances running Linux. Previously, the company was developing microprocessors for high-end laptops, according to the report, but its processors could not achieve the same performance as Intel using half the power. The revamped Transmeta Web site offers no other clues. 22:31 11-16-99 Copyright 1999 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved. Republication or redistribution of Reuters content, including by framing or similar means, is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Reuters. Reuters shall not be liable for any errors or delays in the content, or for any actions taken in reliance thereon. All active hyperlinks have been inserted by AOL.