Exponential Technology (originally Renaissance Microsystems) 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 (computing), processor for which the data processing logic and control is included on a single integrated circuit (IC), or a small number of ICs. The microprocessor contains the arithmetic, logic, a ...

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. ...

technology to produce very fast processors for the

Apple Computer Apple Inc. is an American multinational corporation and technology company headquartered in Cupertino, California, in Silicon Valley. It is best known for its consumer electronics, software, and services. Founded in 1976 as Apple Computer Co ...

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

Hitachi () is a Japanese Multinational corporation, multinational Conglomerate (company), conglomerate founded in 1910 and headquartered in Chiyoda, Tokyo. The company is active in various industries, including digital systems, power and renewable ener ...

. Their product, the Exponential X704, 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 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 telecommunications company based in Schaumburg, Illinois. It was founded by brothers Paul and Joseph Galvin in 1928 and had been named Motorola since 1947. Many of Motorola's products had been ...

(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 Entrepreneurship, entrepreneur to seek, develop, and validate a scalable business model. While entrepreneurship includes all new businesses including self-employment and businesses tha ...

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

Apple Macintosh Mac is a brand of personal computers designed and marketed by Apple Inc., Apple since 1984. The name is short for Macintosh (its official name until 1999), a reference to the McIntosh (apple), McIntosh apple. The current product lineup inclu ...

clone makers such as Power Computing and UMAX. In order to diversify into other markets, a second design team was started under Paul Nixon in

Austin, TX Austin ( ) is the List of capitals in the United States, capital city of the U.S. state of Texas. It is the county seat and most populous city of Travis County, Texas, Travis County, with portions extending into Hays County, Texas, Hays and W ...

to build a BiCMOS

Intel Intel Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company headquartered in Santa Clara, California, and Delaware General Corporation Law, incorporated in Delaware. Intel designs, manufactures, and sells computer compo ...

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 8086 microprocessor and its 8-bit-external-bus variant, the 8088. Th ...

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

* {{web archive, url=https://web.archive.org/web/19970707024919/http://www.exp.com/, title=Official website
IEEE paper on the processor
IEEE Journal of Solid-State Circuits, November 1997 1993 establishments in California 1997 disestablishments in California American companies established in 1993 American companies disestablished in 1997 Computer companies established in 1993 Computer companies disestablished in 1997 Defunct computer companies of the United States Defunct computer hardware companies Defunct semiconductor companies of the United States