The enemy of my enemy is my friend

In the spirit of 'the enemy of my enemy is my friend', microprocessor start-up, Transmeta announced it has entered into a key alliance with rival Advanced Micro Devices and will license key AMD technology it needs to compete with Intel. 

Transmeta said it has licensed AMD's HyperTransport Technology that will help boost the speed of data moving between the microprocessor and other ICs and peripherals inside a computer. The AMD technology increases the speed at which data moves around a computer 48-fold compared to Intel's Peripheral Component Interconnect (PCI) bus. 

The HyperTransport technology will compete with a future upgrade of the PCI bus Intel said it is developing. Transmeta has also agreed to use AMD's 64-bit processor instruction set for a future 64-bit version of the Crusoe chip. David Ditzel, Co-Founder and CTO, Transmeta said, "Licensing the AMD technology made more sense than trying to develop the capability in-house. There is no reason to reinvent the wheel here. The AMD solution makes a lot more sense for the consumer. That is the direction we prefer to go in the long-term."

"AMD's x86-64 instruction extensions provides the best upward compatible path for adding 64-bit address capabilities to the x86 instruction set for the PC industry, and we applaud AMD for taking leadership on this issue," said Ditzel. 

"AMD welcomes Transmeta to the group of companies adopting HyperTransport technology and we look forward to them introducing products incorporating the technology," said Fred Weber, VP and CTO, Computation Products Group, AMD. "Transmeta's endorsement of x86-64 technology demonstrates growing support as we move toward a new industry standard for 64-bit computing. We hope others in the industry will recognize the potential rewards from this collaboration and follow our cue as we advance these new computing standards."