Analog/digital marriage ends; MIPS/Chipidea not a good idea

Junko Yoshida, EE Times
(05/08/2009 12:30 PM EDT)
 
MANHASSET, NY — Talk about a short marriage.

MIPS Technologies Inc., which in August 2007 bought Chipidea, a Portuguese analog and mixed-signal IP company, announced Friday (May 8) that it has now divested its analog business group to Synopsys Inc. in an all-cash transaction for $22 million, effective immediately.

The marriage lasted only 18 months.

John Bourgoin, MIPS Technologies president and CEO, still stands by his original wisdom. Acquiring the analog IP vendor was a "strategic move." During a conference call, he said that the acquisition was intended to "expand our offerings to our customers more parts of SoCs that are difficult to do."

OK, so what went wrong?