Chips and Technologies (C&T or CHIPS) started out as a designer of graphic chips and chipsets for PC motherboards. The company was founded by Gordon Campbell in December 1984 in California and was reincorporated in 1986 in Delaware. C&T was one of the first so-called fabless semiconductor companies. This meant that the company would design chips but had to rely on third parties to manufacture the chips.
This strategy enabled C&T to avoid large capital investments into a semiconductor manufacturing facility and instead focus on design and marketing its products. CHIPS had manufacturing agreements with several semiconductor manufacturers including NEC Corporation, National Semiconductors, TSMC and Yamaha International Corporation. The concept of a fabless semiconductor company was first incorporated by Weitek.
In 1992 Chips and Technologies released their Super386, 386 class, CPU and SuperMath 387 math coprocessor. Unfortunately sales were slow because Intel and AMD already supplied the market with enough CPU’s.
The SuperMath had an even tougher time, no less than 4 manufacturers already sold 387 FPU’s ; Intel, Cyrix, IIT and ULSI. Although the SuperMath was advertised as a part with equal or better performance than the Cyrix FPU it was just too late on the market.
All other manufacturers were already selling their 387 since 1991 and the SuperMath only became widely available at the end of 1992. Prices had fallen by then from a healthy (for the manufacturers) $300 and up to only $100 or less.
CHIPS’ adventure in the x86 CPU/FPU arena was very short lived. From the documentation I have seen it couldn’t have lasted more than 2 years.
While things in the processor and coprocessor business did not work out, things looked better in the graphics arena. Their flat panel controllers were among the best and in 1997 Chips and Technologies was bought by Intel.
Available Math Coprocessors
80387SX
- Super Math Chips P38700SX A 20
- Super Math Chips P38700SX A 25
80387DX
- Super Math Chips J38700DX B 33
- Super Math Chips J38700DX B 40