Gear

AMD May Absorb Transmeta Into Gelatinous Hide

Some spirits are glugged back, others are sipped. As far as AMD is concerned, shriveled chipmaker/engineering firm/IP archive Transmeta is in the latter category, with a $7.5m investment announced Friday that lines it up to finish the bottle — eventually. Maybe. From the Inquirer: “One of the reasons for this transaction could be that Transmeta […]

Chipsposter
Some spirits are glugged back, others are sipped. As far as AMD is concerned, shriveled chipmaker/engineering firm/IP archive Transmeta is in the latter category, with a $7.5m investment announced Friday that lines it up to finish the bottle — eventually. Maybe. From the Inquirer:

"One of the reasons for this transaction could be that Transmeta sued Intel over a year ago and that Transmeta helped AMD in development of HyperTransport and getting x86-64 (known as AMD64) out of the door. The second reason could be continuation of their licensing deals, since AMD licensed Efficeon for FlexGO."

Transmeta gave up on making and selling chips a while back, and cut its engineering services in February. As a technology licensing house, its destiny is to be pursestrung by whomever should want what it still owns and maintains: patents. Customers include NEC, Sony and Toshiba.

Dear AMD, if you absorb Transmeta, promise us one thing: you'll replace its site with the words "This web page was never really here" and just leave it like that for two years.

AMD makes more than strategic investment in Transmeta [Inquirer]