Bipolar Integrated Technology Inc and Oki Electric Industry Co have signed a foundry agreement that enables the Beaverton, Oregon company to ramp up production of its ECL chips. According to Electronic News, Bipolar and Oki will collaborate on the design and manufacture of telecommunications circuits based on Bipolar’s ECL processes, and both companies are to have worldwide marketing rights. In exchange, Oki will act as a Japanese foundry and pay an undisclosed sum for rights to the ECL processes. Bipolar has been struggling to meet its commitments to MIPS Computer Systems and DEC, and both companies have cited this as a reason for shortfalls in the delivery of their own equipment. It says that a cash injection from Oki will be useful, but acknowledges that the back-up foundry is more significant. Nonetheless, Oki won’t have the Japanese operation up and running for some time, possibly a year, and the deal won’t have an immediate effect on delayed shipments of MIPS’ R6000 RISC microprocessor.
