Transmeta Efficeon TM8620 and TM8800: at the turn of 0.13µm and 0.09µm processes

Transmeta introduced its new low-power Efficeon TM8620 processor for mobile and SFF systems operable with passive cooling.

Like the previous versions, TM8620 combines CPU and Northbridge in a single chip that saves PCB place. TM8620 differs from TM8600 by the smaller size of 21x21mm, i.e. it´s 48% smaller than its predecessor.

TM8800 to the left, TM8620 to the bottom right

Novelty´s key features are:

• 0.13µm process
• 592-pin OBGA (organic ball grid array) package, 21x21mm
• x86 software compatibility
• 192KB L1 cache: 128KB instruction cache, 64KB data cache
• 1MB L2 cache
• 900MHz to 1,100MHz clock rates
• Int. Northbridge: memory controller, AGP, HyperTransport controller
• LongRun power and heat dissipation management
• MMX, SSE and SSE2 instruction sets

At the moment only samples are avaiable, while the volume production (by Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company) will start in the middle of this year.

At the same time the company announced its second-generation 1.6GHz processor made using 90nm process — TM8800. It has 8x10mm crystal size, 7W TDP, supports SSE3 and LongRun2.

As for plans for the future, this year the company plans to release 1.8GHz processor with 12W TDP, 2GHz processor with 25W TDP. Considering that ULV Pentium M 733 (1.1GHz) has 5W TDP and the fact that the release is scheduled to Q3 this year, Transmeta has very strong positions and can compete with Intel in some fields.

Sources: Transmeta, PC Watch

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