Zubair Hussain

Montalvo Systems

Montalvo Systems was a Silicon Valley start-up reportedly working on an asymmetrical, x86 capable processor similar to the Cell microprocessor. The processor was to use high-performance cores for performance-intensive threads, and delegate minor tasks to the simpler cores to save silicon and power. Matt Perry, former Transmeta CEO, served as CEO and president of Montalvo; Peter Song, founder of failed x86 manufacturer MemoryLogix, served as chief architect. Another founding member, Kevin Lawton, of bochs (x86 emulation) and plex86 (x86 virtualization) fame, was the processor simulator architect. The official description of business from Montalvo's security filings was: A fabless semiconductor company developing ultra low-power system-on-chips for mobile devices. As of 24th April 2008, Sun Microsystems had acquired the company's assets for an undisclosed sum. Locations Headquarters were in Santa Clara, California, next door to the remnants of Transmeta, and nearby to Intel and Sun. It had offices in Boulder, Colorado and Bangalore, India. According to news reports, it had close to 300 employees. In March 2008 news broke that Montalvo was seeking funds to avoid shutdown[4]. According to a news article released on March 31, Montalvo had laid off two-thirds of its engineers. At the same time, rumors surfaced that Sun Microsystems was in talks to buy Montalvo[5]. About three weeks later, on the 24th April 2008, The Register confirmed the rumors to be true.[3]