Here’s an unexpected company match… GlobalFoundries announced today they have entered into a definitive agreement to acquire MIPS. Yes, the company formerly part of Wave Computing and before that Imagination and Silicon Graphics during its long history. MIPS in recent years hasn’t been focused on its namesake CPU architecture but rather RISC-V core designs.
In the MIPS announcement today by Sameer Wasson, CEO, MIPS Technologies, he commented:
“This strategic move validates our product vision and accelerates our mission to power the next generation of intelligent, real-time compute platforms.
For over 40 years, MIPS has led RISC-based innovation, from our early role in the original RISC revolution to our transformation around the open RISC-V instruction set architecture (ISA). Now, as part of GF, we’re scaling that legacy to deliver best-in-class processors for the next era of connected intelligence.
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MIPS will continue to operate as a standalone business, serving its customers across a broad range of process technologies, foundry partners and ecosystem alliances. With GF’s backing, we’ll accelerate our Atlas roadmap, expand our ecosystem, and bring innovations to market with greater speed and scale.We remain committed to open standards. RISC-V is more than an ISA, it’s a philosophy of openness, modularity, and ecosystem collaboration. Together with GF, we’re building platforms that empower customers to break free from legacy lock-ins and design differentiated solutions.”
GlobalFoundries, of course, being the semiconductor manufacturer born out of AMD’s divestment from the manufacturing side of the company.
It will be interesting to see what comes of GlobalFoundries’ acquisition of MIPS.