Transmeta totters at $1 level

CHIP FIRM Transmeta (TMTA) saw its shares decline by nearly seven per cent yesterday and its price closed on Wall Street last night at a lacklustre $1.

It's not the lowest Transmeta has ducked to, in mid October its share price was a lousy 74 cents. But it's a far cry from its heady days in May 2002 when the firm saw its price top $25.

Yesterday chip analyst firm In-Stat said that Intel's share in the notebook market was assured, despite competition from Via, AMD and Transmeta, although its average selling prices have declined.

We'll discover more when TMTA holds a conference call for investors a week from today.

Transmeta has recently announced some design wins, but so far has failed to really make any breakthrough matching the hype generated when it first was floated.

But it has some interesting patents and this may be the eventual saviour for the chip company, faced with continuing pressure from Intel, particularly in the thin and light marketplace. µ