Talk of Silicon Graphics Inc spinning out its MIPS RISC chip unit has arisen once again. This time the San Jose Mercury hears that bankers are at work on an initial public offering for SGI’s MIPS Product Technologies arm. The move – first mooted earlier this year (CI No 3,331) is expected to involve MIPS partners such as Nintendo Co Ltd and Sony Corp, and fabricators NEC Corp, Philips Semiconductors and Toshiba Corp. Other MIPS fabricators include Integrated Device Technologies Inc, LSI Logic Corp, NKK Corp and Quantum Effect Design Inc. A spin-off would both clear MIPS from SGI’s balance sheet and enable more independence for both SGI and MIPS. Like just about everyone else, SGI is now eyeing the Intel marketplace for future business. Meanwhile, MIPS, which sold 48 million 32-bit chips into the embedded marketplace in 1997, would be free to spend more of its resources developing the consumer and embedded parts where its future now obviously lies. It’s expected that SGI would retain control of the high-end of the MIPS architecture, in order to keep its very high-end graphics technology up to strength. New chief executive Rick Belluzzo is expected to announce the spin-off, which could be worth around $400m, early next month. It’s thought that SGI will retain up to 70% of the spin-off initially, and that the public offering is a little further out. Intel acquired MIPS for $200m in 1992.
