Hitachi plumps for Crusoe chip in laptop

TOKYO: Japan's Hitachi Ltd. became on Tuesday the latest PC maker to endorse

Transmeta's "wonder" chip when it said it would sell a new laptop

model equipped with the Crusoe microchip.

Hitachi will announce details of the new model on Wednesday.

It is the latest major PC maker to say it will shift to the Crusoe chip,

which extends battery life three-fold, from microprocessors made by Intel Corp .

Others include NEC Corp. - Japan's largest PC maker - Sony Corp., Fujitsu

Ltd., Gateway and IBM.

Transmeta introduced its first line of Crusoe microprocessors in January. The

chips are aimed at the notebook and Internet appliance segments of the mobile

Internet computer market.

By 0114 GMT, Hitachi's shares were down 0.24 percent at 1,230 yen in line

with similar tech stocks in Tokyo.

(C) Reuters Limited 2000.