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Transmeta's 90nm Efficeon to sample next month
Won't ship until July at the earliest
Transmeta has already said it will ship the 90nm version of its Efficeon processor during the second half of 2004, but this week it confirmed that it will be getting its hands on the first samples of the chip next month.
The information comes from one the company's recent Securities and Exchange Commission filing, an 8-K form passed on to the SEC on Wednesday.
The 90nm part, which will ship as the TM8800, was "delivered to Fujitsu Microelectronics.... in November 2003. We expect to receive first silicon from this tape-out in January 2004", the company says.
"Fujitsu Microelectronics has limited experience with the 90nm CMOS process and has not yet manufactured in volume using this process," the company goes on to warn. "We cannot be sure that Fujitsu Microelectronics' 90nm foundry will be qualified for production shipments on our planned schedule."
Meanwhile, the TM8600, the 130nm version of Efficeon, is now going into production, with units shipping during the current quarter. Alas, "the substantial majority of shipments of this product to date have been of engineering samples and pre-production units", Transmeta admits. ®
Biting the hand that feeds IT
