- MIPS rival once Intel and arm but now it tries to do something again in AI -chips
- From NASA -SHOULDS TO GAME CONSOLS, MIPS that are quietly shaped modern computing before they fade out
- Thirty years after leading RISC, MIPS is still chasing after a steady business model
Mips, once a central player in the early RISC revolution and a long time rival to arm, has again changed hands.
This time, in a somewhat ironic VRI, the company is acquired by Globalfoundries, Chipp producer spun from AMD.
The acquisition signalizes yet another chapter in MIPS’s complex and turbulent history, a company whose inheritance extends from early workstation -CPUs to operate the original Sony Playstation.
A legacy before modern benchmarks
Decades before anyone asked what the best laptop for video editing or the best GPU may be, MIPS already changed the rules.
The company’s journey began in 1986 when the MIPS R2000 became the first commercial CPU to implement the MIPS instruction set and one of the earliest examples of RISC-based architecture sold under a license model.
John Hennessy, professor at Stanford University and co-creator of the architecture, led the initiative to offer an alternative to the dominant CISC design of Intel and Motorola.
The R2000 was compact for its time, containing about 110,000 transistors and delivering ureters up to 15 MHz.
Although it never achieved the market’s penetration of Intel, MIPS cut out remarkable successes.
R3000, introduced two years after R2000, drove everything from silicon graphics work stations to the first generation of Sony Playstation.
It even guided NASA’s new horizons -probe through its Pluto Flyby and on to the Kuiper belt.
Despite its unclear in mainstream conversations today, MIPS continued quietly in key -hinted applications.
“MIPS brings a strong legacy by providing effective, scalable calculation of IP tailored to performance -critical applications,” said Globalfoundries’ COO Niels Anderskouv.
Ownership of MIPS is often changed and revealed a company in search of stable basis.
After being acquired by silicon graphics in the 1990s, it went through the hands of fantasy technologies, Tallwood Ventures and Wave Computing.
It rebuilt Post-Vanchruptcy in 2020 with a turn against the open RISC-V architecture, a trait that many saw as an attempt to regain relevance in an era that is still more dominated by open standards.
However, MIPS’s Evocore series fought to impress, led to the company launching its atlas assortment of cores and Atlas Explorer platform aiming for performance optimization.
When Globalfoundries acquire the company, the narrative changes again.
MIPS now acts as an independent unit focusing on AI, autonomous mobility and the industrial edge.
Sameer Wasson, Mips CEO, claims, “to become part of Globalfoundries marks the start of a bold new chapter for Mips.”
Still, skepticism remains, especially given the uncertain orbit of the wider RISC-V ecosystem.
Via Eenewseurope
