Transmeta - yes, you remember them - has picked up a prominent licensee scalp in the form of Nvidia.

Transmeta today revealed that Nvidia will pay a one-time fee of $25m for a license to Long Run and LongRun2 - a pair of power management technologies. Such licensing deals have become Transmeta's main path to revenue - outside of suing Intel - ever since it gave up on making chips. Presumably, Nvidia will use the technology to squeeze a bit more energy efficiency out of is graphics processors.

Word of the Nvidia deal arrived as Transmeta issued second quarter financial results. Revenue for the period came in at $366,000, which is almost enough to get a studio apartment in East Palo Alto. Net income for Q2 was $214,000.

Transmeta had an embarrassing number of charges and other income items related to its large settlement (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/10/25/intel_transmeta/) with Intel, restructuring and stock compensation. After adding and subtracting all these items, Transmeta exited the quarter debt free with $142m in cash and other assets.

Shares of Transmeta were near a 52-week high ($15.70) at $14.67 per share at the end of today's trading. ®

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