AMD aggreed to invest $7.5 million in microprocessor developer Transmeta in exchange for Transmeta preferred stock, in an effort to support the firm's development of energy efficient chip technologies.

"We are very pleased that AMD has made a strategic investment in the future of Transmeta," said Les Crudele, president and chief executive officer of Transmeta. "AMD has long been a leader in the development and delivery of energy-efficient, high-performance computing technologies, standards and initiatives. Transmeta has been proud to endorse and contribute to those industry leading activities, and we look forward to continuing our collaboration with AMD on technology initiatives in the future."

"Transmeta has been an innovative force in the industry for more than a decade," said Dirk Meyer, president and chief operating officer of AMD. "Transmeta was a key ally in helping to bring our highly-successful AMD64 technology to market and has supported the widespread industry adoption of both AMD64 and AMD's HyperTransport technology. Our investment will support Transmeta's technology development work and AMD's efforts to leverage Transmeta's innovative energy-efficient technologies to the benefit of AMD's customers."

Transmeta is known for its low-power processors and the LongRun1 and LongRun2 power management technologies.

Both Transmeta and AMD are into an ongoing litigation against Intel, the world's largest chip maker. AMD accuses Intel of antitrust violations, while Transmeta has been involved in a series of patent disputes over chip architecture and power-efficiency technologies.