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| Microprocessor
Headline News Collected By Robert R. Collins |
Week of November 5, 2000 |
Older News |
| November 10, 2000 | ||
Transmeta's stock more than doubles in market debutNovember 7, 2000 |
Computer chip maker Transmeta Corp.'s stock more than doubled in its market debut Tuesday as eager investors scrambled to buy a piece in the latest Silicon Valley company promising to revolutionize the world.
After opening at $44.88 on the Nasdaq Stock Market, Transmeta's shares climbed as high as $50.88 before easing back to close Tuesday at $45.25. Just under 26 million shares exchanged hands under the symbol, ``TMTA.'' |
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Transmeta's IPO shines, but Intel threatens long-term prospectsBy Will Wade November 7, 2000 |
If any company knows the value of positive buzz, it's Transmeta Corp. Just days after IBM Corp. pulled a last-minute about-face and cancelled a project based on the company's low-power Crusoe chip, Transmeta more than doubled its share price on its first day of trading as a public company.
The company introduced its low-power Crusoe processor earlier this year, after years of complete silence had led to rabid curiosity about its designs. And the company has managed to secure several key design wins in ultralight notebooks, despite a reluctance to publicly disclose the Crusoe's performance benchmarks. |
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Transmeta's 12 o'clock highBy Sam Williams November 09, 2000 |
Give the folks at Transmeta (TMTA) credit. Their silicon chips still may be unproven in the marketplace, but if Tuesday's IPO is any indication, the company lacks nothing in the brass cojones department.
Taking off directly into the uncertain winds of Tuesday's presidential election and the flak-filled skies of the recent technology market, the Santa Clara-based chipmaker still managed to jump 115 percent, to $45.25, on its first day of trading. In late afternoon trading today, Transmeta was down 86 cents, to $44.75. |
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Slew Of Transmeta-Based Products On TapBy Paula Rooney November 9, 2000 |
Transmeta is poised to reveal product plans with three of Intel's closest allies -- Microsoft, Compaq, and Gateway.
On Friday, Gateway Inc. (stock: GTW) and America Online Inc. (stock: AOL) plan to unveil an Internet appliance based on the Crusoe microprocessor from Transmeta Corp. (stock: TMTA), which was introduced last January. AOL, Gateway, and Transmeta first disclosed their plans to collaborate last May. |
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Transmeta partners with AOL, Broadcom and Gateway in home InternetBy Bruce Gain November 9, 2000 |
American Online Inc., Broadcom Corp., Gateway Inc., and Transmeta Inc. will shortly take the wraps off of a Gateway Internet appliance that the companies said will bring broadband speed to home and office devices using existing telephone lines.
Featuring Broadcom's HPNA 2.0 technology and Transmeta's low-power, high-speed processor, the companies said the product will be the first of many geared towards bringing streaming audio and video content to and between music players, TVs, PCs, cable modems and Internet appliances. |
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Casio to adopt Transmeta for notebooksBy Michael Kanellos November 9, 2000 |
Casio will introduce a notebook containing a Crusoe chip from Transmeta next year in Japan and, in the process, become the latest small manufacturer to sign up with the chip start-up.
Casio will show off a Crusoe notebook next week at Comdex, according to ARS and subsequently release the notebook to the Japanese market in the first half of 2001. While Casio is not one of the world's largest notebook manufacturers, the deal marks another design win for the chip start-up. Transmeta designs chips that compete with processors from Intel but consume less power than standard Pentium IIIs or Celerons. |
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Transmeta beats Intel and Via for wearable PC maker ViABy Mark LaPedus November 9, 2000 |
Transmeta Corp. here has beaten Intel Corp. and Via Technologies Inc. for a major x86-based microprocessor design win at ViA Inc., a Burnsville, Minn.-based supplier of wearable computers for commercial applications.
Under the terms of a deal announced here today, ViA--which is not related to Taiwanese PC chip set and processor maker Via--will develop a line of wearable PCs for the U.S. Army based on Transmeta's Crusoe processor family. Funded by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), ViA's wearable PCs are currently being tested by the U.S. Army Military Police at Fort Polk, Louisiana and elsewhere. |
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U.S. Army to gear up on Transmeta chipsBy Bloomberg News November 9, 2000 |
Transmeta, the chipmaker whose shares more than doubled after an initial stock sale this week, said its chips will power a new wearable computer being tested by the U.S. Army.
Closely held Via will put Transmeta's Crusoe processor in its latest systems, small computers strapped to a person's back with the displays on a belt. Shipments will start in the first quarter of next year, Via president Ed McConaghay said Thursday. Burnsville, Minn.-based Via, founded in 1993, had previously used Cyrix chips. |
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Compaq drops Transmeta's CrusoeBy John G. Spooner November 8, 2000 |
Compaq deals the chip startup another blow, choosing low-power Pentium IIIs over Transmeta's Crusoe, but an analyst says these maneuverings are being overblown.
Compaq Computer Corp. is the latest large computer manufacturer to pass over Transmeta Corp.'s Crusoe processor -- at least for now. ZDNet News sources confirmed reports that the Houston PC maker's Commercial PC Group has passed on Crusoe. Sources said the PC Group will utilize forthcoming low-power Pentium III chips from Intel Corp. |
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Compaq denies it ditched Transmeta chipBy Ken Popovich November 8, 2000 |
Transmeta Corp.'s initial public offering Tuesday may have been a success, with the stock nearly doubling in value, but the news for the Silicon Valley startup wasn't all good as reports swirled that Compaq Computer Corp. had withdrawn plans to use Transmeta's chips -- reports the PC maker derided as "ludicrous."
Citing unnamed sources, the reports alleged that Compaq canceled plans to feature the chip in its Armada notebook line. The news took on added significance coming just a week after IBM officials confirmed that the company had delayed plans, first announced in June, to introduce Transmeta's low-power 600MHz Crusoe chip in a new ThinkPad 240 later this year. |
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Compaq preps Asian Transmeta product; U.S. plans unclearBy Michael Kanellos and Joe Wilcox November 7, 2000 |
Compaq Computer is preparing a product containing a Crusoe processor from Transmeta for the Asian market, although its plans for the U.S. market remain uncertain.
Sources close to the companies have said Houston-based Compaq is working with the processor designer on a computing device for the Asian market, where most Transmeta-based products so far have been sold. |
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Intel announces 0.13-micron technology, enters copper and low-k raceBy Mark LaPedus November 7, 2000 |
Intel Corp. here today claimed it has strengthened its position in semiconductor manufacturing technology by completing development of a new 0.13-micron process with copper interconnects and low-k dielectrics.
Intel's new P860 logic process--which represents the company's formal entry into the copper-interconnect arena--is a 0.13-micron, six-metal layer technology that will move into production during the first half of 2001. Initially, Intel plans to bring the process up on 200-mm wafers next year, but the company said it will migrate the technology to its 300-mm plants by early 2003. |
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AMD hopes to bring the Hammer downBy Mark Hachman November 9, 2000 |
Advanced Micro Devices today laid out its plans for 2001, when it will introduce new Athlon products and bring 64-bit computing to the desktop PC. A previously undisclosed derivative of the company's 64-bit Hammer processor is being designed for the desktop PC and low-end servers, executives said at the company's fall analyst meeting in Sunnyvale, Calif.
AMD also forecast that flash prices will steadily increase throughout 2001. However, according to a roadmap revealed by company executives, derivatives of the company's flagship Athlon microprocessor may be slower in clock speed than thePentium 4 from Intel Corp. |
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IBM announces PCI-X bridge chip for high-speed applicationsNovember 7, 2000 |
IBM Microelectronics here today announced the industry's first standardized PCI-X bridge chip designed for use in high-speed I/O applications.
The chip is design for PCI-X bus applications, including storage area networks, enterprise computing, voice and data communication systems, said Tom Reeves, director, Storage Networking products for IBM Microelectronics. |
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The Register Files |
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Taiwan DRAM gang ditches RambusBy Tony Smith November 9, 2000 |
A trio of Taiwanese memory manufacturers have dumped Rambus production, Taiwan newspaper the Commercial Times has reported.
Winbond Electronics, Promos Technologies and Powerchip Semiconductor all cited their doubts over the future of the Direct DRAM market as the main motivation for their decision to end production. |
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Gartner jumps on 'RDRAM dead' bandwagonBy Andrew Thomas November 8, 2000 |
Analyst group Gartner says that RDRAM will be dead in six to eight months. At the Gartner Symposium/ITXpo in Cannes yesterday, senior analyst Kevin Knox told delegates:
"Rambus is pretty much dead. It only made it into some areas such as high-end workstations, but it is dead for the mainstream PC. It is probably not a wise decision to carry on supporting this technology." |
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Transmeta helping out AMD, MS with Sledgehammer coding?By John Lettice November 7, 2000 |
An extremely low-key triple alliance of Microsoft, Transmeta and AMD has been working quietly to ensure Microsoft software will support AMD's 64-bit Sledgehammer chip from the word go. This despite public claims by Microsoft execs that Sledgehammer will be playing decidedly second fiddle to Intel's
Itanium.
The deal probably originates in AMD's cosying up to Transmeta earlier this year on the subject of power management, but specifically got going, we're told, because the simulator AMD shipped Microsoft was a dud. The fact that Microsoft was shipped a simulator at all makes it clear the company intended to support AMD, but Microsoft's refusal to work with the cripplingly slow code it got from AMD was the catalyst. |
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| November 7, 2000 | ||
Pentium 4 on sale but can't be usedBy Michael Kanellos November 6, 2000 |
Avid computer fans can already get their hands on the Pentium 4, two weeks before the chip's official debut, but a total lack of motherboards means that chips purchased now can't be used just yet.
A handful of computer dealers are already selling Intel's Pentium 4 processor, which is officially slated to debut Nov. 20. Dallas Memory International, for instance, is selling the 1.5-GHz Pentium 4 for $1,150 and the 1.4-GHz version of the chip for $990, not including shipping, said Alex Zhel, a company sales representative. |
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Intel faces triple threat AMD, others gain in mobile, desktop
arenas
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As desktop computing continues to expand into low-priced and international markets, as Web and intranet server farms expand to meet users' demands, and as mobile computing becomes more pervasive, system builders and enterprise buyers are enjoying processor options from both established IT providers and innovative new competitors.
Intel Corp., whose processor road map once defined the course of personal and departmental computing, is now fighting on three fronts against quite different threats. |
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Intel's Almador chipset to support new "Coppermine" Pentium IIIBy Jack Robertson November 6, 2000 |
Intel Corp. will pre-launch its SDRAM-enabled Almador core-logic chipset in the second quarter of 2001 to support a new Pentium III processor known as Coppermine-T that was only lately added to the company's product road map, industry sources said last week.
The Almador will support the tighter voltage-termination requirements of the new Coppermine derivative, and will also enable Intel to seed the market with an SDRAM-enabled chipset that will later be used to support the Pentium 4, the sources said. |
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Transmeta surpasses estimates with $273 million IPOBy Michael Kanellos November 6, 2000 |
Transmeta raised approximately $273 million Monday by selling 13 million shares of its stock at $21 per share in its initial public offering, a prelude to what could be an active day of trading Tuesday.
The price fetched by Transmeta's stock was well above the range of $16 to $18 set Friday and demonstrated that investors continue to view the company in a positive light. Transmeta designs microprocessors for notebooks and Internet devices that consume less power than competing processors from Intel and Advanced Micro Devices. The stock was sold to pension and mutual funds and will be exchanged in the public market tomorrow under the symbol "TMTA." |
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| November 6, 2000 | ||
Transmeta to launch IPO despite IBM setbackBy Tom Foremski November 5 2000 |
Transmeta, one of Silicon Valley's most closely watched start-ups, is expected to launch its initial public offering on Monday, just days after the troubling news that IBM had postponed plans to use the company's chips.
What made the news more striking is that IBM makes the chips for Transmeta, and is a leading notebook manufacturer - the target customer for Transmeta's low battery power-consuming Crusoe chips. |
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Transmeta: IBM who?
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Mobile computer chip company Transmeta Corp. sent a big message to the initial public offering market Friday -- watch out for Transmeta next week.
Despite the black eye of IBM scrapping plans to use Transmeta's Crusoe microprocessor in an upcoming notebook, Transmeta boosted its expected IPO pricing range $5, nearly 50 percent, to between $16 and $18. |
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Transmeta pumps up IPO price rangeBy Bloomberg News November 3, 2000 |
Transmeta, a chip developer with backing from investors including Paul Allen, George Soros and Sony, on Friday raised the price range of shares to $16 to $18 for its initial public offering, an indication of strong investor demand.
Based on this price range for the 13 million shares Transmeta plans to sell, the IPO could raise $208 million to $234 million before expenses. The company filed in August to raise as much as $200 million in an IPO. On Oct. 2, it said it expected to sell shares at $11 to $13, raising $143.6 million after costs, based on a $12 share price. |
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Transmeta could wake up moribund IPO marketBy Cecily Barnes November 3, 2000 |
After nearly a month of quiet, the market for initial public offerings should pick up next week with the public launch of two companies that are generating a lot of buzz: chipmaker Transmeta and fiber-optics upstart
Luminent.
Investor interest in Santa Clara, Calif.-based Transmeta has been so strong that the company substantially raised the price of its shares Friday, to a range of $16 to $18, from $11 to $13. Under the revised terms, Transmeta will raise up to $234 million through the sale of 13 million shares. |
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Transmeta rules IPO roost
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Want a challenge this week? Try watching the new issues markets without hearing the name "Transmeta."
Mobile computer chipmaker Transmeta Corp.'s initial public offering, already the 800-pound gorilla for the week, garnered even more attention last week after IBM spurned the company's Crusoe for its upcoming ThinkPad 240. According to IPO analysts, investors started to look at the company as damaged goods, but the analysts themselves kept faith in the upcoming offering because the company has taken the lead in chips that use less power and allow laptops to run longer and faster. |
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Transmeta To Take Bow At ComdexAlexander Wolfe November 3, 2000 |
Transmeta Corp. will go to Comdex in Las Vegas later this month flush with an impressive series of design wins.
The company is also poised to pile up a huge war chest of cash, because its initial public offering of stock is expected to hit the market on Tuesday. Nevertheless, the company was buffeted this past week by reports stating that IBM Corp. was pulling the plug on plans to use Transmeta's Crusoe processors in its Thinkpad notebook computers. |
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Rambus Plans Clarified By IntelNovember 3, 2000 |
In a briefing to analysts Wednesday, Intel execs predicted the company's forthcoming Pentium IV chip, scheduled for launch this month, will achieve mainstream market penetration sooner than expected. Meanwhile, a company spokesman Thursday clarified the chipmaker's plans for supporting controversial Rambus memory in its chipset designs.
During the analysts' briefing, which the company opened to all via a Webcast, Intel executive VP Paul Otellini said he expects Pentium IV to surpass Pentium III in sales a year earlier than the initial target of 2002. |
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The Register Files |
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Desperate Dell begging Transmeta for a Crusoe deal?By John Lettice November 2, 2000 |
Dell's cosy relationship with Intel, and a little carelessness with secret files, is causing the company serious grief with Transmeta, a usually reliable source alleges. "Dell has been calling Transmeta every week for the last two months," he says, but Transmeta won't return the calls.
According to our source Dell's problem dates back some way, to the time when Transmeta was hawking its wares around the PC business. "It appears that Dell 'shared' all its Transmeta info with Intel," he says. "Transmeta found out about this and was not too happy, cutting off Dell from all information, since giving information to Dell is 'like giving it to Intel.'" |
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Intel wants to have DDR cake and eat itBy Andrew Thomas November 3, 2000 |
VIA could go ahead with its own DDR chipset for Pentium 4, with or without Intel's agreement.
The world's number one and two chipset makers are known to be discussing an agreement whereby VIA could provide DDR support for the P4 in the light of Intel's current agreement with Rambus which prevents the company from supporting DDR memory on its own chipsets until 2003. |
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Chipsetzilla wins back market shareBy Andrew Thomas November 3, 2000 |
Intel veep Paul Otellini told analysts this week that the chip behemoth "has recaptured its chipset market share" and in particular has boosted production of the 815 range.
Otellini said when the 815 was introduced early this year, it was 'production limited' because Intel's fab capacity was devoted primarily to processor output. "In Q3 we were able to get enough capacity to build a much higher volume of 815 chipsets," he said. "We have gained back the chipset market share we previously held." |
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