Transmeta disclosed today another details concerning its upcoming Astro processor for notebooks and other devices with low power consumption. The firm said that the new CPU will support three main interfaces: 400MHz HyperTransport bus, AGP 4x interface and PC3200 DDR SDRAM memory interface.

Transmeta’s Astro chip also known as TM8000 is based on 256-bit VLIW architecture. The Astro is able to perform 8 instructions per clock thanks to the 256-bit VLIW architecture in contrast to 4 instructions performed by Crusoe CPUs. Transmeta Astro processor will be manufactured using 0.13 micron process from TSMC and its core clock will be about 1.4GHz at the launch. In order to improve the speed even more, Transmeta decided to implement PC3200-supporting memory controller in the chip from the present PC2100 controller found on the Crusoe microprocessors. While PC3200 is definitely not the most power-saving type of memory, it seem that the company still will boast with low power consumption of devices powered by Transmeta’s chips, as the Santa Clara, California-based firm says that Astro’s power consumption is 47% lower than that of the TM5x00 series.

Transmeta Astro processor integrates AGP 4x interface for graphics solutions. To tell you the truth, Transmeta is the first CPU-developer to combine graphics interface and a microprocessor.

TM8000 chip also incorporates on-chip 400MHz HyperTransport bus interface for connecting other components of the system.

Mass production of Transmeta Astro microprocessors will begin later this year at TSMC using 0.13 micron technology process. At Comdex Fall 2002 a Transmeta representative said that the actual CPUs will cost as low as $120.

I have to admit that the part definitely has a lot of prospects on the market, considering all its innovations, level of performance and relatively low price.

See also:

- Transmeta Demonstrates Astro. Plans to Beat the Banias

- Transmeta Shows its Advantages a Week Before Announcing Year Results

- Transmeta Announced First Embedded Security Features for x86 Microprocessors. First Silicon Already Here