Montalvo Systems was a Silicon Valley start-up reportedly working on an asymmetrical, x86 capable processor similar to the Cell microprocessor.
Another founding member, Kevin Lawton, of bochs (x86 emulation) and plex86 (x86 virtualization) fame, was the processor simulator architect.
The official description of business from Montalvo's security filings[2] was: A fabless semiconductor company developing ultra low-power system-on-chips for mobile devices.
[3] Headquarters were in Santa Clara, California, next door to the remnants of Transmeta, and nearby to Intel and Sun.
At the same time, rumors surfaced that Sun Microsystems was in talks to buy Montalvo.