editor's blog
Subscribe Now

MIPS Gets a New Home

Hey, wanna buy a CPU company? You’re too late, because MIPS Technologies was just sold for $60 million in cash. If that’s more than you have in your pocket, it’s still a tiny sum for a company that helped pioneer the idea of RISC processors. Once the deal goes through, the MIPS processor familiy will belong to Imagination Technologies, the same IP company that offers PowerVR graphics, HelloSoft code, Ensigma network IP, and other doodads for SoC developers. Now MIPS becomes the jewel in Imagination’s crown.

Interestingly, Imagination gets only 82 of MIPS’s collection of 580 patents. The other 498 were bought by a little-known firm called Allied Security Trust (AST). And that part of the sale cost $350 million — almost six times as much as the company itself. Even more interesting, MIPS arch-rival ARM put up about one-third of that purchase price. So ARM now has part-ownership of the bulk of MIPS’s patents.

Not to worry, though. Imagination has perpetual rights to the entire patent portfolio, not just the 82 it bought. And the company will continue to license and market MIPS processor cores, including the newer Aptiv designs. They’ll just be coming from a different company.

It’s no secret that MIPS was having financial trouble and was looking for a buyer. Still, it’s sad to see the company broken up and sold off. MIPS Computer Systems was one of the early RISC pioneers. The company spun off Silicon Graphics as well as MIPS Technologies, for the purpose of licensing its innovative high-performance CPUs. Alas, MIPS never got the kind of traction that ARM got, and it was all downhill from there. Ironically, most of its corporate IP is now in ARM’s hands.

Leave a Reply

featured blogs
Mar 28, 2024
The difference between Olympic glory and missing out on the podium is often measured in mere fractions of a second, highlighting the pivotal role of timing in sports. But what's the chronometric secret to those photo finishes and record-breaking feats? In this comprehens...
Mar 26, 2024
Learn how GPU acceleration impacts digital chip design implementation, expanding beyond chip simulation to fulfill compute demands of the RTL-to-GDSII process.The post Can GPUs Accelerate Digital Design Implementation? appeared first on Chip Design....
Mar 21, 2024
The awesome thing about these machines is that you are limited only by your imagination, and I've got a GREAT imagination....

featured video

We are Altera. We are for the innovators.

Sponsored by Intel

Today we embark on an exciting journey as we transition to Altera, an Intel Company. In a world of endless opportunities and challenges, we are here to provide the flexibility needed by our ecosystem of customers and partners to pioneer and accelerate innovation. As we leap into the future, we are committed to providing easy-to-design and deploy leadership programmable solutions to innovators to unlock extraordinary possibilities for everyone on the planet.

To learn more about Altera visit: http://intel.com/altera

featured chalk talk

Enabling IoT with DECT NR+, the Non-Cellular 5G Standard
In the ever-expanding IoT market, there is a growing need for private, low cost networks. In this episode of Chalk Talk, Amelia Dalton and Heidi Sollie from Nordic Semiconductor explore the details of DECT NR+, the world’s first non-cellular 5G technology standard. They investigate how this self-healing, decentralized, autonomous mesh network can help solve a variety of IoT connectivity issues and how Nordic is helping designers take advantage of DECT NR+ with their nRF91 System-in-Package family.
Aug 17, 2023
27,238 views