Nvidia also needs Transmeta

Transmeta has announced having sold a license to Nvidia for Long Run and LongRun2 as well as for other technology and intellectual property. The « package » should help the company with the chameleon logo to develop products that consume less energy even if we do not yet know exactly which ones.

The cost of this transaction was a rather significant $25 million although compared to the Geforce’s $800 million in profits last year it may seem small. Note that the agreement was unveiled at a moment when Nvidia needs to set things straight after the GeForce 8M overheating problems and also has to rapidly acquire a maximum of knowledge and know-how if it wants to give a chance to the Tegra’s successors.

You may recall that Transmeta made a name for itself at the start of the decade with Crusoe and Efficeon processors capable of functioning with x86 applications via Code Morphing Software which translates x86 into VLIW (Very Long Instruction Word) instructions; however, it had to throw in the towel due to stiff competition, especially from Intel. Moreover, the latter pays $20 million per year for the right to use some of its technology while AMD, which invested $7.5 million in the company, should also benefit in this domain. In short, the three giants seem to be equally armed – at least in this area...