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| Company type | Private |
|---|---|
| Industry | Semiconductors |
| Founded | Bristol, United Kingdom, (1978 (1978)) |
| Founders | Iann Barron, Richard Petritz, Paul Schroeder |
| Fate | Acquired bySGS-Thomson (1989) |
| Headquarters | United Kingdom  |
| Products | transputer |
| Parent | STMicroelectronics (United Kingdom) |
| Website | www |
Inmos International plc (trademarkINMOS) and two operating subsidiaries, Inmos Limited (UK) and Inmos Corporation (US), was a Britishsemiconductor company founded byIann Barron, Richard Petritz, and Paul Schroeder in July 1978. Inmos Limited’s head office and design office were atAztec West business park inBristol, England.
Inmos' first products werestatic RAM devices, followed bydynamic RAMs andEEPROMs. Despite early production difficulties, Inmos eventually captured around 60% of the world SRAM market. However, Barron's long-term aim was to produce an innovativemicroprocessor architecture intended forparallel processing, thetransputer.David May and Robert Milne were recruited to design this processor, which went into production in 1985 in the form of the T212 and T414 chips.[1][2]
The transputer achieved some success as the basis for several parallelsupercomputers from companies such asMeiko (formed by ex-Inmos employees in 1985),Floating Point Systems,Parsytec and Parsys. It was used in a few workstations, the most notable probably being theAtari Transputer Workstation.[3] Being a relatively self-contained design, it was also used in someembedded systems. However, the unconventional nature of the transputer and its nativeoccam 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.[4]
Other devices produced by Inmos included the A100, A110 and A121digital signal processors,G364 framebuffer, and a line of videoRAMDACs, including the G170[5] and G171, which was adopted byIBM for the originalVGAgraphics adapter used in theIBM PS/2.[6]
The company was founded byIann Barron, a British computer consultant, Richard Petritz and Paul Schroeder, both American semiconductor industry veterans. Initial funding of £50 million was provided by the UK government via theNational Enterprise Board. AUS subsidiary, Inmos Corporation, was also established inColorado.Semiconductor fabrication facilities were built in the US atColorado Springs, Colorado and in the UK atNewport,South Wales.
Under theprivatization policy ofMargaret Thatcher the National Enterprise Board was merged into theBritish Technology Group and had to sell its shares in Inmos. Offers for Inmos fromAT&T and a Dutch consortium had been turned down.[7] In 1982, construction of themicroprocessor factory inNewport,South Wales was completed. By July 1984Thorn EMI had made a £124.1m bid for the state's 76% interest in the company (the remaining 24% had been held by Inmos founders and employees).[8] Later it was raised to £192 million, approved August 1984 and finalized in September.[7]
In total, Inmos had received £211 million from the government, but did not become profitable.[9]According to Iann Barron Inmoswas profitable in 1984 "we were really profitable in 1984 ... we made revenues of £150 million, and we made a profit which was slightly less than £10 million".[10]
In April 1989, Inmos was sold to SGS-Thomson (nowSTMicroelectronics). Around the same time, work was started on an enhanced transputer, the T9000. 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 asset-top boxes.
In December 1994, Inmos was fully assimilated into STMicroelectronics, and the usage of the Inmos brand name was discontinued.
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