MIPS has ended up in China, reports Reuters.

MIPS lands up in China

It got there via a tortured series of deals starting with Imagination buying MIPS in 2013 followed by  China-backed Canyon Bridge buying Imagination in 2017.

The US government insisted that MIPS must not go with Imagination to Canyon Bridge so MIPS was sold to Diosdado Banatao who made his first fortunes at Chips and Technologies and S3.

Banatao, by then a VC, switched the ownership of MIPS between various of his family-owned companies before transferring MIPS licensing rights, in 2018, to a Samoan-registered company whose chairman and founder was also chairman and founder of a Chinese-registered company.

The same year the Samoan company transferred ownership of the licensing rights to the Chinese company called CIP United.

CIP is reported to control MIPS licensing rights and the right to develop derivative products for customers in China. 

One of those customers is Huawei.