Transmeta Signs Licensing Deal with Intel, then Puts Itself on the Block

The fat lady is singing for Transmeta. The once known for its highly energy-efficient x86-compatible Crusoe and Efficeon microprocessors announced two new licensing deals with Intel today, and then proclaimed that the company was for sale.

The Intel deals accelerate the payment schedule on an earlier settlement, which will net Transmeta $91.5 million in cash. Under the original terms of the settlement—which gave Intel a perpetual, non-exclusive license to all Transmeta patents and patent applications, including any that Transmeta might acquire before December 31, 2017—Intel was to pay Transmeta $20 million per year each year from 2009 to 2013.

“Receiving these one-time payments strengthens our balance sheet,” said Transmeta CEO Les Crudele, “and allows potential buyers to more accurately evaluate our company.” Crudele went on to say that Transmeta will collect $265 million in cash payments for its intellectual property and patents in 2008. “We expect that our intellectual property portfolio and licensing business,” he said, “combined with our solid balance sheet, will be attractive to potential bidders. Crusoe was an innovative CPU that featured a virtual machine that emulated Intel’s x86 instruction set. The virtual machine translated the machine-code instructions it received from software programs running on it into an instruction set native to its core.

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