Silent start1/8/2024 ![]() So why would a company even try? That's the $73 million plus mystery. Others like Rise Semiconductor and IDT gave up at even earlier stages. (When IBM manufactured chips on behalf of Cyrix, it had the right to keep and sell chips coming off its assembly lines, but IBM only put these chips in a few computers in a few national markets.) Cyrix teamed with IBM, National and later Via, but only landed a few token design wins with PC makers. It then hit manufacturing problems and entered a financial tailspin from which it never completely recovered. Transmeta landed a couple of small deals with Sony and Sharp early on. The rest of the companies lived tales of woe. When acquisitions are taken into account, AMD has lost more money than it has made in over three decades of being in the chip business. Before that, PC makers would adopt one or two AMD chips, and then drop them after AMD delays or Intel price cuts. AMD spent decades cranking out Intel-compatible microprocessors before PC makers began in 2003 to consistently incorporate AMD chips into their lineups. To top it off, phone and PC makers are generally reluctant to buy chips from the competitors. This week, in fact, it detailed an upcoming low-power chip for smartphones and small notebooks called Silverthorne that will run at 2GHz and consume 2 watts of power. The company has drastically improved the power efficiency of its chips. Since then, Intel has only become stronger. ![]() Even in 2005 at the nadir of its recent market share war with rival AMD, Intel stayed above 70 percent market share and remained profitable. The company remains the largest and one of the most efficient chipmakers in the world. Historically, Intel also has had difficulty in reducing the power consumption of its chips because of their underlying architecture.Ĭompeting against Intel, however, is never easy. Fujitsu, which makes Intel-compatible Transmeta chips, is one likely candidate.īeing compatible with Windows and the thousands of applications written for PCs gives the chip a vast potential market. The number of chipmakers with legal permission to produce Intel-compatible chips is relatively small and many, such as IBM, have lost money on helping out start-ups in this market. Montalvo is also talking with an established chipmaker to manufacture the chip. (CNET blogger Peter Glaskowsky is chief systems architect for Montalvo and is listed as a co-inventor on two published Montalvo patent applications, but he was not involved in any way in this story. Other current and former employees include Greg Favor (formerly of NexGen and AMD) and Mike Yamamura. Peter Song, Montalvo's chief architect, earlier founded a company called MemoryLogix, which tried to build low-power Intel-compatible chips. Montalvo's CEO is Matt Perry, who also served as chief executive of Transmeta, which once tried to take on Intel in notebooks but now largely concentrates on technology licensing. He then went to NexGen, which designed an Intel-compatible chip, and Advanced Micro Devices, which bought NexGen. NEA-IndoUS's Vinod Dham, who sits on Montalvo's board, was one of Intel's chief chip architects during the Pentium era. Many of the people behind Montalvo have tangled with Intel before. It has offices in Silicon Valley and Bangalore and has several employment requests open on job boards.Ī company representative declined to comment for this report. The disclosed patent applications revolve around conserving energy while retrieving data from memory or caches.Īlthough the company doesn't have chips yet, it is expected to make some sort of public announcement later this year about its progress. The company has filed several patents, say sources, but only a few applications have thus far become public through the World Intellectual Property Organization. Venture Partners, NEA-IndoUS Ventures, and Adams Street Partners have plunked more than $73 million into the company. Venture and private equity firms such as CMEA, Bay Partners, U.S. The Santa Clara, Calif.-based company is designing a multicore, energy-efficient chip for ultraportables and notebooks that will be capable of running the same software that Intel chips run, according to sources. Montalvo Systems is just hoping it has a different ending this time. It's a drama we've all seen play out before: a small, secretive start-up lays plans to come out with a chip that will compete against Intel in a hot market.
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