Digital and MIPS sign RISC agreement

Press, 27 September 1988, Page 31

Digital and MIPS sign RISC agreement

Digital Equipment Corporation has sealed an alliance with MIPS Computer Systems, the RlSCtechnology firm. RISC stands for reduced instruction set computer, and is providing faster processing performance. Digital and MIPS have signed a comprehensive technology exchange agreement covering MIPS technology and designs, and Digital has bought a 5 per cent stake in the firm, and can take this to 20 per cent. MIPS is represented in Christchurch by Business Computers, Ltd, which is competing with Digital in the minicomputer market. Mr Robert Palmer, Digital vice-president and group manager, semiconductor operation, said: “The MIPS technology is the best RISC technology in our opinion and best meets our system needs today and for the foreseeable future. We intend to develop high performance systems, for the desktop and upwards, which utilise RISC technology. The technology transfer agreement assures that both companies will remain at the forefront of this important technology. “While other companies are just now delivering their first RISC chips, MIPS customers have been selling systems based on our technology for over two

years,” said Mr Robert Miller, chairman, and chief executive of MIPS. “Objective, third-party benchmarks consistently rate MIPS RISC-based systems as the performance leaders. This real-world proof of performance has led to over 40 design wins, and now the endorsement of Digital. Digital’s selection of MIPS underscores our market share leadership in the RISC computing world.” Mr William Strecker, Digital’s vice-president, product strategy and architecture, said in April Digital announced it was a co-founder of the Open Systems Foundation, to which it had contributed significant resources. “Just a few weeks ago we announced Version 3.0 of our Ultrix operating system, underlining our continued support of Unix and our commitment to industry standards with Posix and OSF. Future systems based on RISC technology will be high performance platforms supporting the Ultrix/OSF operating system in Digital’s system architecture. The highest level of interoperability between our VAX/VMS and RISC/ Ultrix systems is assured by their position as alternate technologies in a common system architecture.”