Montalvo Systems

Montalvo Systems was a fabless semiconductor company established to develop ultra-low-power system-on-chips (SoCs) for the mobile device market. The firm operated from Santa Clara, California, with additional offices in Boulder, Colorado, and Bangalore, India, and grew to nearly 300 employees.

The company was guided by a team of industry veterans. Matt Perry, the former CEO of Transmeta, another company that pioneered low-power x86 processors, served as CEO and president. The core technical leadership included Chief Architect Peter Song, founder of the x86 manufacturer MemoryLogix, and Kevin Lawton, known for his work on the bochs x86 emulator, who was the processor simulator architect. The team also included microarchitecture specialist Greg Favor from NexGen/AMD and system and power architect Carlos Puchol, who had previous experience at Transmeta and Nvidia.

Montalvo's strategy centered on creating a novel, asymmetrical x86-capable processor. This design intended to use high-performance cores for demanding tasks while simpler, more efficient cores would handle minor background processes to conserve power and silicon space, a concept similar to the Cell microprocessor. This approach aimed to deliver a power-efficient solution for an emerging generation of mobile devices, positioning the company as a potential competitor to established players like Intel and AMD. The business model was that of a fabless company, focusing on the design and patenting of chip technology without owning manufacturing facilities.

Despite raising over $73 million in venture capital, Montalvo Systems faced significant financial challenges before it could bring a product to market. In early 2008, the company began seeking substantial additional funding to avoid a shutdown and subsequently laid off two-thirds of its engineering staff. The intellectual property and the engineering team's expertise in asymmetrical core design attracted interest from Sun Microsystems. In April 2008, Sun Microsystems acquired the technology assets of Montalvo Systems for an undisclosed sum, integrating the team and its patents into Sun's Microelectronics business unit.

Keywords: Montalvo Systems, fabless semiconductor, ultra low-power, system-on-chip, SoC, mobile devices, asymmetrical processor, x86 processor, Matt Perry, Peter Song, Kevin Lawton, Sun Microsystems acquisition, low-power cores, chip design, semiconductor IP, venture capital, Transmeta, MemoryLogix