Great MIPS chips of the past 30 years

Some 30 years ago, a fresh-faced team of Silicon Valley engineers from Stanford University, Motorola, IBM and other semiconductor companies introduced the computing world to MIPS, a new CPU architecture built around an innovative concept: improve system performance by quickly executing simple instructions.

For the win.

Confession: I get really excited about hardware. I really go all out, mini-fist pump and everything.

The IP licensing business model. A love story.

Some months ago my colleague Rys Sommefeldt wrote an article offering his (deeply) technical perspective on how a chip gets made, from R&D to manufacturing. While his bildungsroman production covers a lot of the engineering details behind silicon production, it is light on the business side of things; and that is a good thing because […]

When SoC met IP.

In this article I’d like to address a common misconception that I often see reprinted in many articles. When presenting the relationship between IP vendors and chip makers, an image of fierce competition is repeatedly (and wrongfully) painted in the media.

Ask me everything.

Two weeks ago, I ventured yet again into the crazy realm of reddit to host my first AMA on /r/hardware. There were some good questions overall and hopefully my answers lived up to expectations.

Be true to your school.

About a month ago, Imagination announced MIPSfpga, an initiative that gives universities free access to an unobfuscated, production-quality MIPS CPU.

The evolution of MIPS CPUs

Inspired by a question I saw on reddit earlier today, I decided to repurpose some slides initially created for a press briefing earlier this month.

Maker Fairy.

I had absolutely no expectations when I landed in San Francisco for my first Maker Faire event. I’ve attended self-proclaimed cool trade shows in the past (I’m looking at you, GDC) but nothing prepared me for the geek-fest that was the 2015 edition of Maker Faire Bay Area.

All your cores are belong to us.

First we saw the gold rush of octa-core; now we’re hearing reports of deca-core and perhaps even dodeca-core processors. So. Many. Cores. How did we get here?

It’s hip to be square.

Today Imagination is releasing a new version of the Creator CI20 microcomputer that features an updated design. The square shape improves Wi-Fi performance and makes it easier for makers to mount the board on top of various other components.