INMOS
Encyclopedia
Inmos Limited was a British
semiconductor
company, founded by Iann Barron
, with both the head office and the design office at Aztec West
in Bristol
, it was incorporated in November 1978.
Inmos's first products were static RAM devices, followed by dynamic RAMs and EEPROM
s. Despite early production difficulties, Inmos eventually captured around 60% of the world SRAM market. However, Barron's long-term aim was to produce an innovative microprocessor
architecture intended for parallel processing
, the transputer. David May
and Robert Milne were recruited to design this processor, which eventually went into production in 1985 in the form of the T212 and T414 chips.
The transputer achieved some success as the basis for several parallel supercomputer
s from companies such as Meiko
(formed by ex-Inmos employees in 1985), Floating Point Systems
, Parsytec and Parsys. Being a relatively self-contained design, it was also used in some embedded systems. However, the unconventional nature of the transputer and its native occam programming language limited its appeal. During the late 1980s, the transputer (even in its later T800 form) also struggled to keep up with the ever-increasing performance of its competitors.
Other devices produced by Inmos included the A100, A110 and A121 digital signal processor
s, G364 framebuffer
, and a line of video RAMDAC
s, including the G171, which was adopted by IBM
for the original VGA graphics adapter used in the IBM PS/2.
, a British computer consultant, Richard Petritz and Paul Schroeder, both American semiconductor industry veterans. Initial funding of £50M was provided by the UK government via the National Enterprise Board
. A US subsidiary, Inmos Corporation, was also established in Colorado
. Semiconductor fabrication
facilities were built in the US at Colorado Springs, Colorado
and in the UK at Newport
, South Wales
.
Under the privatization
policy of Margaret Thatcher
the National Enterprise Board was merged into the British Technology Group and had to sell its shares in Inmos. Offers for Inmos from AT&T
and a Dutch consortium had been turned down. In 1982, construction of the microprocessor factory
in Newport
, South Wales
was completed. By July 1984 Thorn EMI
had made a bid for £124.1 million for the state's 76 percent interest in the company (the remaining 24% had been held by Inmos founders and employees). Later it was raised to £192 million, approved August 1984 and finalized in September.
In total, Inmos had received £211 million from the government, but did not become profitable.
In April 1989, Inmos was sold to SGS-Thomson (now STMicroelectronics
). Around the same time, work was started on an enhanced transputer, the T9000. Unfortunately, this encountered various technical problems and delays, and was eventually abandoned, signalling the end of the development of the transputer as a parallel processing platform. However, transputer derivatives such as the ST20 were later incorporated into chipsets for embedded applications such as set-top box
es.
In December 1994, Inmos was fully assimilated into STMicroelectronics, and the usage of the Inmos brand name was discontinued.
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
semiconductor
Semiconductor device
Semiconductor devices are electronic components that exploit the electronic properties of semiconductor materials, principally silicon, germanium, and gallium arsenide, as well as organic semiconductors. Semiconductor devices have replaced thermionic devices in most applications...
company, founded by Iann Barron
Iann Barron
Iann Barron is a British computer engineer and entrepreneur, born in June 1936.During vacation work in 1956-7 at Elliott Brothers while still at Cambridge he designed the Elliot 803...
, with both the head office and the design office at Aztec West
Aztec West
Aztec West is a business park in South Gloucestershire, England, situated at the northern fringes of Greater Bristol, near Bradley Stoke and Patchway. It is close to the M4 and M5 motorways and the Almondsbury Interchange. Adjacent is the A38 trunk road....
in Bristol
Bristol
Bristol is a city, unitary authority area and ceremonial county in South West England, with an estimated population of 433,100 for the unitary authority in 2009, and a surrounding Larger Urban Zone with an estimated 1,070,000 residents in 2007...
, it was incorporated in November 1978.
Products
EEPROM
EEPROM stands for Electrically Erasable Programmable Read-Only Memory and is a type of non-volatile memory used in computers and other electronic devices to store small amounts of data that must be saved when power is removed, e.g., calibration...
s. Despite early production difficulties, Inmos eventually captured around 60% of the world SRAM market. However, Barron's long-term aim was to produce an innovative microprocessor
Microprocessor
A microprocessor incorporates the functions of a computer's central processing unit on a single integrated circuit, or at most a few integrated circuits. It is a multipurpose, programmable device that accepts digital data as input, processes it according to instructions stored in its memory, and...
architecture intended for parallel processing
Parallel processing
Parallel processing is the ability to carry out multiple operations or tasks simultaneously. The term is used in the contexts of both human cognition, particularly in the ability of the brain to simultaneously process incoming stimuli, and in parallel computing by machines.-Parallel processing by...
, the transputer. David May
David May (computer scientist)
Michael David May, born February 24, 1951, is a British computer scientist. He is Professor of Computer Science at the University of Bristol and founder and Chief Technology Officer of XMOS Semiconductor.May was lead architect for the transputer...
and Robert Milne were recruited to design this processor, which eventually went into production in 1985 in the form of the T212 and T414 chips.
The transputer achieved some success as the basis for several parallel supercomputer
Supercomputer
A supercomputer is a computer at the frontline of current processing capacity, particularly speed of calculation.Supercomputers are used for highly calculation-intensive tasks such as problems including quantum physics, weather forecasting, climate research, molecular modeling A supercomputer is a...
s from companies such as Meiko
Meiko Scientific
Meiko Scientific Ltd. was a British supercomputer company based in Bristol, founded by members of the design team working on the INMOS transputer microprocessor.-History:...
(formed by ex-Inmos employees in 1985), Floating Point Systems
Floating Point Systems
Floating Point Systems Inc. was a Beaverton, Oregon vendor of minisupercomputers. The company was founded in 1970 by former Tektronix engineer Norm Winningstad....
, Parsytec and Parsys. Being a relatively self-contained design, it was also used in some embedded systems. However, the unconventional nature of the transputer and its native occam programming language limited its appeal. During the late 1980s, the transputer (even in its later T800 form) also struggled to keep up with the ever-increasing performance of its competitors.
Other devices produced by Inmos included the A100, A110 and A121 digital signal processor
Digital signal processor
A digital signal processor is a specialized microprocessor with an architecture optimized for the fast operational needs of digital signal processing.-Typical characteristics:...
s, G364 framebuffer
G364 framebuffer
The G364 framebuffer was a line of graphics adapters using the SGS Thomson INMOS G364 chipset, produced by INMOS in the early 1990s...
, and a line of video RAMDAC
RAMDAC
Random Access Memory Digital-to-Analog Converter is a combination of three fast DACs with a small SRAM used in computer graphics display adapters to store the color palette and to generate the analog signals to drive a color monitor...
s, including the G171, which was adopted by IBM
IBM
International Business Machines Corporation or IBM is an American multinational technology and consulting corporation headquartered in Armonk, New York, United States. IBM manufactures and sells computer hardware and software, and it offers infrastructure, hosting and consulting services in areas...
for the original VGA graphics adapter used in the IBM PS/2.
Business history
The company was founded by Iann BarronIann Barron
Iann Barron is a British computer engineer and entrepreneur, born in June 1936.During vacation work in 1956-7 at Elliott Brothers while still at Cambridge he designed the Elliot 803...
, a British computer consultant, Richard Petritz and Paul Schroeder, both American semiconductor industry veterans. Initial funding of £50M was provided by the UK government via the National Enterprise Board
National Enterprise Board
-History:The National Enterprise Board was set up in the United Kingdom in 1975 to implement the Wilson Labour government's objective of extending public ownership of industry...
. A US subsidiary, Inmos Corporation, was also established in Colorado
Colorado
Colorado is a U.S. state that encompasses much of the Rocky Mountains as well as the northeastern portion of the Colorado Plateau and the western edge of the Great Plains...
. Semiconductor fabrication
Semiconductor fabrication
Semiconductor device fabrication is the process used to create the integrated circuits that are present in everyday electrical and electronic devices. It is a multiple-step sequence of photolithographic and chemical processing steps during which electronic circuits are gradually created on a wafer...
facilities were built in the US at Colorado Springs, Colorado
Colorado
Colorado is a U.S. state that encompasses much of the Rocky Mountains as well as the northeastern portion of the Colorado Plateau and the western edge of the Great Plains...
and in the UK at Newport
Newport
Newport is a city and unitary authority area in Wales. Standing on the banks of the River Usk, it is located about east of Cardiff and is the largest urban area within the historic county boundaries of Monmouthshire and the preserved county of Gwent...
, South Wales
South Wales
South Wales is an area of Wales bordered by England and the Bristol Channel to the east and south, and Mid Wales and West Wales to the north and west. The most densely populated region in the south-west of the United Kingdom, it is home to around 2.1 million people and includes the capital city of...
.
Under the privatization
Privatization
Privatization is the incidence or process of transferring ownership of a business, enterprise, agency or public service from the public sector to the private sector or to private non-profit organizations...
policy of Margaret Thatcher
Margaret Thatcher
Margaret Hilda Thatcher, Baroness Thatcher, was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1979 to 1990...
the National Enterprise Board was merged into the British Technology Group and had to sell its shares in Inmos. Offers for Inmos from AT&T
AT&T
AT&T Inc. is an American multinational telecommunications corporation headquartered in Whitacre Tower, Dallas, Texas, United States. It is the largest provider of mobile telephony and fixed telephony in the United States, and is also a provider of broadband and subscription television services...
and a Dutch consortium had been turned down. In 1982, construction of the microprocessor factory
Inmos microprocessor factory
The Inmos microprocessor factory, also known as the Inmos factory, is a building in Newport, Wales, UK which was originally built as a microprocessor fabrication plant for Inmos and is now occupied by International Rectifier. The architects of the award-winning high-tech building were the Richard...
in Newport
Newport
Newport is a city and unitary authority area in Wales. Standing on the banks of the River Usk, it is located about east of Cardiff and is the largest urban area within the historic county boundaries of Monmouthshire and the preserved county of Gwent...
, South Wales
South Wales
South Wales is an area of Wales bordered by England and the Bristol Channel to the east and south, and Mid Wales and West Wales to the north and west. The most densely populated region in the south-west of the United Kingdom, it is home to around 2.1 million people and includes the capital city of...
was completed. By July 1984 Thorn EMI
Thorn EMI
Thorn EMI was a major British company involved in consumer electronics, music, defence and retail. Created in October 1979 when Thorn Electrical Industries merged with EMI, it was listed on the London Stock Exchange and was once a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index but it demerged again in...
had made a bid for £124.1 million for the state's 76 percent interest in the company (the remaining 24% had been held by Inmos founders and employees). Later it was raised to £192 million, approved August 1984 and finalized in September.
In total, Inmos had received £211 million from the government, but did not become profitable.
In April 1989, Inmos was sold to SGS-Thomson (now STMicroelectronics
STMicroelectronics
STMicroelectronics is an Italian-French electronics and semiconductor manufacturer headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland.While STMicroelectronics corporate headquarters and the headquarters for EMEA region are based in Geneva, the holding company, STMicroelectronics N.V. is registered in Amsterdam,...
). Around the same time, work was started on an enhanced transputer, the T9000. Unfortunately, this encountered various technical problems and delays, and was eventually abandoned, signalling the end of the development of the transputer as a parallel processing platform. However, transputer derivatives such as the ST20 were later incorporated into chipsets for embedded applications such as set-top box
Set-top box
A set-top box or set-top unit is an information appliance device that generally contains a tuner and connects to a television set and an external source of signal, turning the signal into content which is then displayed on the television screen or other display device.-History:Before the...
es.
In December 1994, Inmos was fully assimilated into STMicroelectronics, and the usage of the Inmos brand name was discontinued.
External links
- Inmos and the transputer: part 1 and part 2 — a talk given by Iann Barron to the Computer Conservation Society of the British Computer Society in 1998
- Inmos ex-employee website
- Dick Selwood (August 2007). "The Inmos legacy". Components in Electronics.
- Parsys SN9500 based on 32 x T9000 running at 20 MHz (text and pictures).