Transmeta Receives Intel Payment, Goes Up For Sale

Transmeta, first adopters in the low-power processor field but now primarily licensors of their intellectual property and patents, has begun a discovery process relating to a potential sale of the company. This comes on the heels of an agreement reached between Transmeta and Intel over intellectual property and patents which consists of Intel making a one-time payment of $91.5 mill. US to Transmeta by October, followed by yearly payments of $20 mill. US from 2009 up to 2013. Some of Transmeta’s microprocessor IP and technology can be found here.

Although the bleeding edge advances of Transmeta’s early years were damaged in part by the VLIW to x86 emulation layer and memory cache offloading relative to the consumer market availability, and also issues with distances between its public promises and deliverables, its remarkable to remember they are one of the old-school early innovators, and players, in the microprocessor field. Its almost refreshing. Here’s hoping for a lucrative sale which infuses, and doesn’t defuse.