Lexra to become fabless chip supplier, settles RISC patent suit with MIPS

Lexra to become fabless chip supplier, settles RISC patent suit with MIPS
By Semiconductor Business News
January 2, 2002 (8:44 a.m. EST)
URL: http://www.eetimes.com/story/OEG20011231S0014

SAN JOSE -- Lexra Inc. here on late Monday announced it was changing its business plan to become a fabless semiconductor company after reaching an agreement to settle a two-year-old patent lawsuit filed by MIPS Technologies Inc.

As part of the settlement, Lexra will license MIPS Technologies' MIPS32 RISC processor technology, and the company has promised to transfer its processor intellectual property (IP) to MIPS. Mountain View, Calif.-based MIPS had accused Lexra of infringing upon its patented RISC processor instruction-set technology.

Lexra said it now will shift its focus from licensing IP design cores to chip developers and pursue its own ICs for communications applications, based on MIPS Technologies' RISC cores. The San Jose-based company said it will assign its processor IP assets over to MIPS Technologies, and both companies have agreed to work together to convert Lexra's current customers into MIPS Technologies' customers.

Other t erms of the suit settlement were not released.

"We strongly support Lexra's new direction as a fabless semiconductor company," said John Bourgoin, chairman and CEO of MIPS Technologies in Mountain View, Calif.

The new licensing agreement and Lexra's change in strategy come as communications companies "increasingly prefer to purchase rather than develop complex network processing components," said Charlie Cheng, president and chief executive officer of Lexra. "It gives Lexra the chance to provide an innovative chip solution to our network infrastructure customers, and at the same time work with MIPS Technologies as partners," he added.