A year later, much of the mystery swirling around Transmeta remains. In the past few months the company has suffered a number of setbacks, including lackluster scores on performance tests and rejection by several prominent computer manufacturers. Compaq also said that it had no immediate plans for Crusoe in its line of laptops and notebooks. The biggest blow for Transmeta came last fall when NEC recalled about 300 notebooks because of apparent flaws in the Crusoe chip. Transmeta's carefully constructed curtain will be pulled back, revealing either a viable contender in the featherweight-chip wars or a pretender that succeeded only in spending other people's money.
More transistors means more processing power and faster computers.
First, as transistors shrink, development costs grow exponentially. Hotter still is battery life. As processors continue to pack more power, they also eat more power. Up to 35 percent of laptop battery life is eaten up by the processor. So as laptops gain Hertz, battery life tends to shrink.