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Transmeta Corp. lost $20.1 million during a first quarter that saw it branch out its business beyond solely manufacturing energy-efficient chips for mobile devices.
The Santa Clara, Calif., companys loss was an improvement over the $30.9 million its lost during the same period last year and the $21.7 million it lost in the fourth quarter 2002.
Revenue for the first quarter was $6 million, more than the $4.1 million generated in the same period last year and about the same as the $6.1 million it garnered in the fourth quarter, the company said Thursday.
During the quarter ended March 28, Transmeta rolled out the Crusoe SE (Special Embedded) processor line for such areas as medical and scientific devices, retail kiosks, and point-of-sale terminals, and announced it will embed wireless security technology onto its Crusoe TM5800 chip.
Company officials said they were on track for a third-quarter launch of their new chip, the TM8000—code-named Astro—for such devices as thin-and-light notebooks, Tablet PCs and ultradense blade servers. The chip will feature enhanced Code Morphing Software capabilities and LongRun power and cooling technologies.
“We are in a transition period as our embedded designs begin to ramp and as mobile computing design activity shifts to our TM8000 processor,” President and CEO Matthew Perry said in a prepared statement. “We believe the embedded ramp and transition to the TM8000 will stimulate growth in the second half of the year.”
Perry said that manufacturers already are designing the TM8000 into upcoming versions of their notebooks and Tablet PCs. However, he said, it may not be enough for Transmeta to reach its goal of becoming profitable in the fourth quarter.
“We will continue to control our spending and closely monitor our revenue growth during the second half of the year, still driving toward a goal of profitability,” he said.
Looking forward, Transmeta officials said they expect revenue in the second quarter to come in at about $5 million.
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