Vice president of Intergraph Corp’s advanced processor division Howard Sachs, in London this week to introduce the Clipper 300 CMOS processor (CI No 1,069) claims that the rival Motorola 88000 RISC processor is a direct copy of the Clipper. The company is currently awaiting the outcome of several pending patent cases before deciding what, if any action is to be taken regarding the 88000’s alleged impersonation. Motorola strongly denies the accusation, Clive Gay, European microprocessor marketing manager saying that the two are worlds apart and that the Clipp er barely meets the cycles per instructions standard set for RISC processors anyway. According to Andy Pinckard of MIPS Computer Systems, both take a common approach by using proprietary memory manager and cache units in the processor.
MOTOROLA’s 88000 “IS A COPY OF THE CLIPPER” – INTERGRAPH
