Product Code Database
Inmos International plc (trademark INMOS) and two operating subsidiaries, Inmos Limited (UK) and Inmos Corporation (US), was a British semiconductor company founded by Iann Barron, Richard Petritz, and Paul Schroeder in July 1978. Inmos Limited’s head office and design office were at Aztec West business park in Bristol, England.
The transputer achieved some success as the basis for several parallel from companies such as Meiko Scientific (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 the Atari Transputer Workstation. 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 processors, G364 framebuffer, and a line of video , including the G170 and G171, which was adopted by IBM for the original VGA graphics adapter used in the IBM PS/2.
Under the privatization policy of Margaret Thatcher the National Enterprise Board was merged into the BTG plc 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 £124.1m bid for the state's 76% interest in the company (the remaining 24% had been held by Inmos founders and employees). Thorn-EMI Will Buy A 76% Stake in Inmos, The New York Times, 13 July 1984. Later it was raised to £192 million, approved August 1984 and finalized in September.Wayne Sandholtz (1992) "High-Tech Europe: The Politics of International Cooperation." Berkeley: University of California Press p. 155
In total, Inmos had received £211 million from the government, but did not become profitable.Kevin Smith, "Inmos Forced to Get off the Dole." Electronics 22 September 1983, 56:106, as cited by Wayne Sandholtz
According to Iann Barron Inmos was 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". Iann Barron, Archives of IT, p26
In April 1989, Inmos was sold to SGS-Thomson (now STMicroelectronics). 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 as .
In December 1994, Inmos was fully assimilated into STMicroelectronics, and the usage of the Inmos brand name was discontinued.
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Categories: Defunct Computer Companies Of The United Kingdom, Defunct Computer Hardware Companies, Defunct Semiconductor Companies, Computer Companies Established In 1978, Computer Companies Disestablished In 1989, Defunct Companies Based In Colorado, 1978 Establishments In England, 1989 Disestablishments In England, Semiconductor Companies Of The United Kingdom
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