Exponential Technology was a vendor of

PowerPC PowerPC (with the backronym Performance Optimization With Enhanced RISC – Performance Computing, sometimes abbreviated as PPC) is a reduced instruction set computer (RISC) instruction set architecture (ISA) created by the 1991 Apple Inc., App ...

microprocessor A microprocessor is a computer processor where the data processing logic and control is included on a single integrated circuit, or a small number of integrated circuits. The microprocessor contains the arithmetic, logic, and control circu ...

s. The company was founded by George Taylor and Jim Blomgren in 1993. The company's plan was to use

BiCMOS Bipolar CMOS (BiCMOS) is a semiconductor technology that integrates two semiconductor technologies, those of the bipolar junction transistor and the CMOS (complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor) logic gate, into a single integrated circuit. In ...

technology to produce very fast processors for the

Apple Computer Apple Inc. is an American multinational technology company headquartered in Cupertino, California, United States. Apple is the largest technology company by revenue (totaling in 2021) and, as of June 2022, is the world's biggest company b ...

market. Logic used 3-level ECL circuits (single-ended for control logic, and differential for datapaths) while RAM structures used CMOS. The company was originally named Renaissance Microsystems. Rick Shriner was the CEO. Their chips were manufactured by

Hitachi () is a Japanese multinational corporation, multinational Conglomerate (company), conglomerate corporation headquartered in Chiyoda, Tokyo, Japan. It is the parent company of the Hitachi Group (''Hitachi Gurūpu'') and had formed part of the Ni ...

. Their product, the Exponential

X704 The x704 is a microprocessor that implements the 32-bit version of the PowerPC instruction set architecture (ISA) developed by Exponential Technology. The microprocessor was notable for its high clock frequency (for the time, circa 1997) in the ra ...

, was advertised to run at 533 MHz, but the first version of the device only ran at about 400 MHz, still significantly faster than the 233 MHz

PowerPC 604e The PowerPC 600 family was the first family of PowerPC processors built. They were designed at the Somerset facility in Austin, Texas, jointly funded and staffed by engineers from IBM and Motorola as a part of the AIM alliance. Somerset was opened ...

used in Macintosh computers at the time. This lower frequency along with small level-one caches, produced systems which had good but not stellar performance. This allowed

Motorola Motorola, Inc. () was an American Multinational corporation, multinational telecommunications company based in Schaumburg, Illinois, United States. After having lost $4.3 billion from 2007 to 2009, the company split into two independent p ...

(Apple's traditional processor vendor), to convince the computer maker that Motorola's future roadmap would produce processors with similar performance, hence making it less attractive for Apple to rely on the small

startup company A startup or start-up is a company or project undertaken by an entrepreneur to seek, develop, and validate a scalable business model. While entrepreneurship refers to all new businesses, including self-employment and businesses that never intend t ...

for critical technology. Due to Apple's financial problems at the time, Exponential starting marketing the device to

Apple Macintosh The Mac (known as Macintosh until 1999) is a family of personal computers designed and marketed by Apple Inc., Apple Inc. Macs are known for their ease of use and minimalist designs, and are popular among students, creative professionals, and ...

clone makers such as

Power Computing Power Computing Corporation (often referred to as Power Computing) was the first company selected by Apple Inc to create Macintosh-compatible computers (" Mac clones"). Stephen “Steve” Kahng, a computer engineer best known for his design of t ...

and UMAX. In order to diversify into other markets, a second design team was started under

Paul Nixon Paul Andrew Nixon (born 21 October 1970) is an English cricket coach and former professional cricketer who played for Leicestershire, England, England A, Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC) and Kent. He is a wicket-keeper and left-handed batsman. N ...

Austin, TX Austin is the capital city of the U.S. state of Texas, as well as the seat and largest city of Travis County, with portions extending into Hays and Williamson counties. Incorporated on December 27, 1839, it is the 11th-most-populous city ...

to build a BiCMOS

Intel Intel Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company headquartered in Santa Clara, California. It is the world's largest semiconductor chip manufacturer by revenue, and is one of the developers of the x86 seri ...

x86 x86 (also known as 80x86 or the 8086 family) is a family of complex instruction set computer (CISC) instruction set architectures initially developed by Intel based on the Intel 8086 microprocessor and its 8088 variant. The 8086 was introd ...

processor. Due to Apple's decision to close off the Macintosh clone market, Exponential ran out of possible customers for their chips. The company closed in 1997, though the Texas design team run by Paul Nixon continued on as EVSX. EVSX changed its name to Intrinsity, Inc. in 2000 and was purchased by Apple in 2010.

Notes

External links

JSSC paper on the processorIntrinsity, Inc. website

External links

* {{webarchive, url=https://web.archive.org/web/19970103202112/www.exp.com, date=January 3, 1997, title=Official website Companies established in 1993 Defunct semiconductor companies of the United States Companies disestablished in 1997