Transmeta demos 2 GHz Efficeon processor

San Jose (CA) - Transmeta announced that it will debut a new generation of its TM8800 Efficeon processor later this year. The processor will be clocked at 2 GHz and support Intel’s SSE3 instruction set.

Transmeta demonstrated the updated processor, likely to be named Efficeon 2, at its booth at the Fall Processor Forum and provided some technical details. The 90 nm-chip will significantly boost the currently highest clock speed of the chip (1.6 GHz) and maintain low power consumption. The thermal design power (TDP) is expected to stay below 25 Watts with 1.4 to 1.6 GHz achieving seven Watts and at 1 to 1.1 GHz only three Watts, according to chief technology officer David Ditzel.

The Efficeon 2 will also support the SSE3 instruction set, which was introduced earlier this year in Intel’s 90 nm Pentium 4 processor and increases performance in certain applications such as video decompression.

The TM8800 processors are currently manufactured by Fujitsu, which has allowed Transmeta to increase the performance of the chip, Ditzel said. Shipping since September of this year, the chips are still in limited supply. Transmeta however said that it continues to ramp up production to increase availability of the TM8800.