MIPS, the RISC architecture I mentioned in yesterday's post, has a long and interesting corporate history. MIPS has changed hands so many times it's almost difficult to count.
MIPS was originally spun out of Stanford University in 1984 by a group of researchers including John Hennessy. Hennesy is the chairman of Alphabet (Google's parent company) and was the tenth president of Stanford University. S
1984: Founded
1989: IPO
1992: Acquired by Silicon Graphics (whose office park is now the Googleplex)
1998: MIPS spun out as an intellectual property licensing company
1998: MIPS IPOs, again (through a SPAC!)
2013: Sold to Imagination Technologies for $100 million
2017: Sold to Tallwood Venture Capital for $65 million
2018: Sold to Wave Computing
2020: Wave Computing files for bankruptcy
2021: Wave Computing renames itself to MIPS and joins RISC-V International. All future designs will be RISC-V.