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MIPS Technologies, Inc. , formerly MIPS Computer Systems, is most widely known for developing the MIPS architecture
MIPS architecture

MIPS is a RISC instruction set architecture developed by MIPS Technologies . In the mid to late 1990s, it was estimated that one in three RISC microprocessors produced were MIPS implementations....
 and a series of pioneering RISC
Reduced instruction set computer

The acronym RISC , for reduced instruction set computing, represents a CPU design strategy emphasizing the insight that simplified instructions that "do less" may still provide for higher performance if this simplicity can be utilized to make instructions execute very quickly....
 CPUs
Central processing unit

A central processing unit is an electronic circuit that can execute computer programs. This broad definition can easily be applied to many early computers that existed long before the term "CPU" ever came into widespread usage....
. MIPS provides processor architectures and cores for digital consumer, networking, personal entertainment, communications and business applications.

MIPS Computer Systems Inc. was founded in 1984 by a group of researchers from Stanford University
Stanford University

Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University or Stanford, is a private university research university located in Stanford, California, California, United States....
 that included John L. Hennessy
John L. Hennessy

John LeRoy Hennessy is an United States computer scientist and academic. Hennessy is the founder of MIPS Computer Systems Inc. and is the 10th President of Stanford University....
, as a vendor of microprocessor chips.






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MIPS Technologies, Inc. , formerly MIPS Computer Systems, is most widely known for developing the MIPS architecture
MIPS architecture

MIPS is a RISC instruction set architecture developed by MIPS Technologies . In the mid to late 1990s, it was estimated that one in three RISC microprocessors produced were MIPS implementations....
 and a series of pioneering RISC
Reduced instruction set computer

The acronym RISC , for reduced instruction set computing, represents a CPU design strategy emphasizing the insight that simplified instructions that "do less" may still provide for higher performance if this simplicity can be utilized to make instructions execute very quickly....
 CPUs
Central processing unit

A central processing unit is an electronic circuit that can execute computer programs. This broad definition can easily be applied to many early computers that existed long before the term "CPU" ever came into widespread usage....
. MIPS provides processor architectures and cores for digital consumer, networking, personal entertainment, communications and business applications.

MIPS Computer Systems Inc. was founded in 1984 by a group of researchers from Stanford University
Stanford University

Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University or Stanford, is a private university research university located in Stanford, California, California, United States....
 that included John L. Hennessy
John L. Hennessy

John LeRoy Hennessy is an United States computer scientist and academic. Hennessy is the founder of MIPS Computer Systems Inc. and is the 10th President of Stanford University....
, as a vendor of microprocessor chips. MIPS made its first initial public offering
Initial public offering

Initial public offering , also referred to simply as a "public offering" or "flotation," is when a company issues common stock or Share to the public for the first time....
 (IPO) on Nasdaq in November 1989 (after which it was acquired by Silicon Graphics
Silicon Graphics

Silicon Graphics, Inc. is a company manufacturer high-performance computing solutions, including computer hardware and computer software. SGI was founded by James H....
, SGI, spun-off, then IPOed again in 1998).

After being successful in the market with the R2000 and R3000 microprocessors, a management change brought along the larger dreams of being a computer vendor. The company found itself unable to compete in the computer market against much larger companies and was struggling to support the costs of developing both the chips and the systems (MIPS Magnum
MIPS Magnum

The MIPS Magnum was a line of computer workstations designed by MIPS Technologies and based on the MIPS architecture series of RISC microprocessors....
). To secure the supply of future generations of MIPS microprocessors (the 64-bit R4000), SGI acquired the company in 1992 for $333 million and ran it as MIPS Technologies Inc. (MTI), a wholly owned subsidiary of SGI.

After SGI decided to migrate to the Itanium
Itanium

Itanium is the brand name for 64-bit Intel microprocessors that implement the Intel Itanium architecture . Intel has released two processor families using the brand: the original Itanium and the Itanium 2....
 architecture in 1998, it was decided to spin out MTI as an intellectual property licensing company offering licences to the MIPS architecture as well as microprocessor core designs. MTI made an IPO on June 30 1998, i.e. it was no longer wholly owned by SGI since the IPO. SGI spun it off completely on June 20 2000 by distributing all its interest as stock dividend to the stock holders.

Shares of the company are publicly traded on NASDAQ
NASDAQ

The NASDAQ is an United States stock exchange. It is the largest Electronic trading screen-based Stock trading market in the United States....
 with the symbols .

Besides its headquarters in Mountain View, California
Mountain View, California

Mountain View is a city in Santa Clara County, California, in the U.S. state of California. The city gets its name from the views of the Santa Cruz Mountains....
, MIPS has development facilities in Oeiras
Oeiras

Oeiras is a civil parish and a Municipalities of Portugal in western Lisbon Metropolitan Area, Portugal. It is in conurbation with Lisbon, the parish population is 34,850, and the entire Oeiras municipality has 168,475 inhabitants....
, and Porto
Porto

Porto , also Oporto in English, is Portugal's second city and capital of the Norte, Portugal NUTS II region. The city is located in the estuary of the Douro river in northern Portugal....
 both in Portugal
Portugal

Portugal , officially the Portuguese Republic , is a country on the Iberian Peninsula. Located in southwestern Europe, Portugal is the westernmost country of mainland Europe and is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the west and south and by Spain to the north and east....
; Gdansk
Gdansk

Gdansk is the city at the centre of the fourth-largest metropolitan area in Poland. It is Poland's principal seaport as well as the capital of the Pomeranian Voivodeship....
 in Poland
Poland

Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe. Poland is bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian Enclave and exclave, to the north....
; Leuven
Leuven

Leuven is the capital of the province of Flemish Brabant in the Flanders, Belgium. It is located about 30 kilometers east of Brussels, with as other neighbouring cities Mechelen, Aarschot, Tienen, and Wavre....
, in Belgium
Belgium

* A small German-speaking Community of Belgium exists in eastern Wallonia. Belgium's linguistic diversity and related political and cultural conflicts are reflected in the history of Belgium and a complex Communities and regions of Belgium....
; Macau
Macau

The Macau Special Administrative Region, , commonly known as Macau or Macao , is one of the two special administrative region of the People's Republic of China, the other being Hong Kong....
, Suzhou
Suzhou

Suzhou is a city on the lower reaches of the Yangtze River and on the shores of Lake Taihu in the province of Jiangsu, China. The city is renowned for its beautiful stone bridges, pagodas, and meticulously designed Chinese garden which have contributed to its status as a great tourist attraction....
 and Shanghai
Shanghai

Shanghai is the List of cities in the People's Republic of China by population in China and one of the List of metropolitan areas by population in the world, with over 20 million people....
 in China
China

China is a Culture of China, an ancient civilization, and, depending on perspective, a national or multinational entity extending over a large area in East Asia....
; Caen
Caen

Caen is a commune in France in northwestern France. It is the prefecture of the Calvados Departments of France and the capital of the Basse-Normandie r?gion in France....
 in France
France

France , officially the French Republic , is a country whose Metropolitan France is located in Western Europe and that also comprises various Overseas departments and territories of France....
; Trondheim
Trondheim

is a city and Municipalities of Norway in S?r-Tr?ndelag Counties of Norway, Norway. The city of Trondheim was established as a municipality on 1 January 1838 ....
 in Norway
Norway

Norway , officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a constitutional monarchy in Northern Europe that occupies the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula....
; and Beaverton, Oregon
Beaverton, Oregon

Beaverton is a city in Washington County, Oregon, Oregon, United States, seven miles west of Portland, Oregon in the Tualatin River Valley., its population is estimated to be 86,205, almost 14% more than the United States Census, 2000 figure of 76,129....
.

Company timeline


  • 1981: Dr. John Hennessy at Stanford University leads research in building a microprocessor using RISC principles.
  • 1984: MIPS Computer Systems, Inc. co-founded by Dr. John Hennessy, Skip Stritter
    Edward P. Stritter

    Edward P. Stritter, engineer and entrepreneur, was the chief architect of the Motorola 68000 CPU , a co-founder of the first commercial RISC company MIPS Technologies , the founder of Clarity Wireless , and founder of NeTPower....
    , and Dr. John Moussouris
  • 1989: First IPO in November as MIPS Computer Systems with Bob Miller as CEO
  • 1992: SGI acquires MIPS Computer Systems. Transform it into internal MIPS Group, and then incorporates and renames it to MIPS Technologies, Inc. (a wholly owned subsidiary of SGI)
  • 1998: Re-IPO as MIPS Technologies, Inc
  • 2002: acquires Algorithmics Ltd, a UK-based MIPS development hardware/software and consultancy company.
  • September 6, 2005: acquired First Silicon Solutions (FS2), a Lake Oswego, Oregon company as a wholly owned subsidiary. FS2 specializes in silicon IP, design services and OCI (On-Chip Instrumentation) development tools for programming, testing, debug and trace of embedded systems in SoC, SOPC, FPGA, ASSP and ASIC devices.
  • 2007: MIPS Technologies acquires Portugal-based mixed-signal intellectual property company Chipidea
    Chipidea

    Chipidea is since 2007 a fully integrated division, and a brand, of US-based company MIPS Technologies. It was a Portugal analog semiconductor IP design center, headquarterd in Oeiras, Greater Lisbon subregion, and had been founded in 1997....


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