Last month’s announcement that National Semiconductor had agreed to buy Fairchild Semiconductor from Schlumberger Ltd (CI No 751) certainly seemed to suggest that Intergraph had given up on its desire to buy an interest in the ailing company itself and ensure its own supply of the Clipper chip set, but, in fact, the story did not end there: Intergraph last week signed an agreement to buy the Clipper microprocessor set, including licences and inventory, from NatSemi. Financial details of the agreement were not disclosed, although the purchase price is thought to be under $10m. The acquisition is contingent upon regulatory approval of National Semiconductor’s purchase of Fairchild. Intergraph, Huntsville, Alabama uses the Clipper 32-bit RISC architecture chip in its top-end workstations, and when uncertainty over Fairchild’s future became rampant, Intergraph reportedly began evaluating the Sun Microsystems SPARC chip as an alternative.
