SAN JOSE—In a surprise announcement at this mornings opening session of the Microprocessor Forum, Transmeta Corp. CTO David Ditzel (as seen in photo above) demonstrated forthcoming power-management technology that he promised would dramatically increase lifetime of portable devices. Dubbed LongRun2, the new approach adjusts low-level transistor characteristics hundreds of times per second to minimize power wasted by leakage currents in microprocessors. In what Ditzel said was the first public demonstration of the technology, a processor reduced its idle-mode power consumption from 144mW to 2mW.
Ditzel, whose keynote speech introduced Transmetas new Efficeon processor line, said that the LongRun2 technology would appear in future Transmeta products at a date to be announced.