Bipolar Integrated Technology

Template:Short description Template:Infobox company Bipolar Integrated Technology, Inc. (BIT), later Bit, Inc., was a privately held<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> semiconductor company based in Beaverton, Oregon, which sold products implemented with emitter-coupled logic technology. The company was founded in 1983 by former Floating Point Systems, Intel, and Tektronix engineers.<ref name=acquired /><ref>Template:Cite journal</ref><ref>Template:Cite journal</ref><ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> The company, which occupied a 46,000-square-foot manufacturing facility at the Oregon Graduate Center,<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> raised $36 million in start-up capital within three years of its foundation.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>

File:BIT B2110 die.jpg

Die shot of a BIT B2110 floating point multiplier

The initial product was a floating-point co-processor chipset. Later, the company produced the B5000 SPARC ECL microprocessor (never reached production in a Sun Microsystems product, though used by Floating Point Systems).<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> They also produced the R6000 MIPS ECL microprocessor, which did reach production as a MIPS minicomputer.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> Initial yields of the R6000 were very poor, leading to parts shortages for MIPS Computer Systems; the latter company attributed their first quarterly loss in October 1990 to BIT.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> The two signed an agreement in June 1991 to allow BIT to market the R6000 on the open market, dissolving the previous exclusivity agreement with MIPS.<ref name=agreement>Template:Cite journal</ref>

Under its new president Fred Hanson, BIT had its first profitable year in 1991,<ref name=agreement /> reaching peak revenues of $20 million. Revenues dropped the following year to about $10 million, however, after it had lost four of its largest customers, including MIPS, Floating Point, and Control Data.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> The company eventually entered the telecommunications market with Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) devices and Ethernet switches. The company was acquired by PMC-Sierra in September 1996 for these later communications products.<ref name=acquired>Template:Cite journal</ref><ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>