14 DAY TRIAL // The CPU market is a harsh environment, where even the old and experienced can sometimes fail lamentably. Small start-ups have many times attempted to take over large companies using a technological "ace in the sleeve", but they all failed.
Things may be different this time, or so does Montalvo Systems wish us to believe. The new company is currently working on a multi-core processor to feature increased energy-efficiency. Their processor will allegedly power ultra-mobile and notebook PCs, with an x86 compatible instruction set.
The chip will be able to run the same code as the existing processors on the market. The company seems not to lack resources, since both ventures and equity firms have invested more than $73 million. Among its supporters, there are names like CMEA, Bay Partners, U.S. Venture Partners, NEA-IndoUS Ventures, and Adams Street Partners.
According to some sources in the industry, the new start-up has already applied for some technology patents, but, as far as they are available, these patents concern energy preservation and efficiency in retrieving data from memory or caches. The company has not produced any chip yet, but it seems that it would announce their technology later this year.
Interesting enough, most of the Montalvo employees have quite a history inside Intel. For instance, Vinod Dham, one of the company's executives worked as chief chip architect at Intel when the Pentium processors rocked the market. Moreover, it seems that the company's CEO is Matt Perry, one of the chief executives at Transmeta (a company that challenged Intel once, but failed and has gone nearly bankrupt).
The new company seems to be in talks with a chip manufacturer that will produce its chips when (if) they are ready. However, there is only a small number of chip manufacturers that are allowed to produce Intel-compatible chips, and they have lost significant amounts of money in an attempt to release "revolutionary" processors.