IBM Corp is going to be competing with SGS-Thomoson Microelectronics BV when it starts marketing Cx486 chips under its own name: on Friday, SGS-Thomson announced that it had decided to enter the market for iAPX-86-compatible microprocessors under its own name, starting with the parts that it fabricates for Cyrix, although International Meta Systems Inc, Torrance, California designer of the IMS 3250 RISC emulator of the 80486, says it hopes to get SGS to make that part at its Grenoble plant, and SGS acknowledges that Cyrix may not be its only design source for future parts. The move by SGS is a very aggressive one because it intends to reopen its shuttered Phoenix, Arizona plant to make the parts: the plant is already equipped for 0.5 micron CMOS. See `The law of unintended consequences’ below
