Prospects for Thorn EMI’s problematic Inmos International chip shop have improved immeasurably over the past year, and that $20m or so contract with IBM for Colour Look-Up Table chips is expected to be followed by penetration of the high-performance engineering workstation market with the new Transputer-based mathematics co-processor, which may well turn up in future offerings from the likes of Sun Microsystems and Apollo Computer. And now the company has moved to extend its position in the semiconductor Mecca, Japan, signing a second distributor alongside Matsushita Electrical Trading. The new distributor is Daiya Semiconductor Systems, a member of the Mitsubishi group, and Inmos looks for the new agreement to double its 1986-87 sales of $3.5m in Japan in the fiscal year just started. Daiya was picked for its extensive sales network that already handles the Intel 80386: the Inmos chips are seen as complementary to the Intel parts, and after IBM’s endorsement, are likely to turn up in Japanese personals.
