Transmeta Revs Up Astro Chip.

Transmeta Corp.'s upcoming mobile chip, code-named Astro, will include three new bus interfaces designed to increase the performance of devices featuring the processor.

The new bus interfaces will include HyperTransport capabilities, greater memory features and on-chip ADP-4X graphics support for high-performance graphics capabilities.

The energy-efficient TM8000, which is being designed for such devices as thin-and-light notebooks, Tablet PCs and ultradense blade servers, is still on schedule to be launched in the third quarter, according to officials with Transmeta, of Santa Clara, Calif.

The company is releasing more information about the chip on Monday, two days before Intel Corp. is due to launch its Centrino mobile platform, which features the Pentium-M chip, formerly code-named Banias. Transmeta officials declined to release other information about Astro, including its expected clock speed, power consumption numbers and brand name.

Transmeta officials have said that they expect Astro to enable the company's technology, which until now has been used in such products as Hewlett-Packard Co.'s Compaq Tablet PC TC1000 and blade servers from RLX Technologies Inc., to move farther up the notebook food chain, into products with 12- to 14-inch screens and possibly compete with Banias.

Transmeta's current line of processors, which tops out with a 1GHz version of the TM5800, has gained some traction in the Asian and European markets, but has had less success in the United States.

However, also on Monday, Transmeta is announcing that Sharp Systems of America is using the 1GHz chip in its Actius MM10 notebook for the U.S. market. The new notebook from Sharp, a division of Sharp Electronics Corp., will weigh 2.1 pounds and will be 0.54 inch thick. It also will use integrated Wi-Fi capabilities for wireless connectivity and will feature the Sharp Connection Cradle, enabling the notebook to maintain data consistency with other computers.