Summary:
MIPS Tech LLC, originally MIPS Computer Systems, is a semiconductor design company that specializes in microprocessor architectures and cores for various applications, including digital home entertainment, networking, and embedded systems. MIPS is known for developing the MIPS architecture, a pioneering RISC design.
MIPS was initially successful in the late 1980s, with prominent customers like DEC and SGI. However, competition intensified, leading to SGI's acquisition of MIPS in 1992. After SGI decided to transition away from MIPS, the company became an independent design house and was later acquired by Imagination Technologies in 2013. MIPS has since been sold to other companies, including Wave Computing and Tallwood Venture Capital.
In recent years, MIPS has shifted its focus to RISC-V, an open-source instruction set architecture. The company has released its first RISC-V CPU IP cores, the eVocore P8700 and I8500, and has announced partnerships with companies like Mobileye for the development of autonomous driving SoCs. MIPS continues to support a wide range of operating systems, including Linux, Android, and various real-time operating systems.