Via Technologies

Cyrix Corporation, was a manufacturer of computer processor solutions. The company became a subsidiary of National Semi Conductor from November of 1997. National Semiconductor ran into financial trouble soon after the Cyrix merger, and these problems hurt Cyrix as well. By 1999, AMD and Intel were leapfrogging one another in clock speeds, reaching 450 MHz and beyond while Cyrix took almost a year to push the MII from PR-300 to PR-333. National Semiconductor distanced itself from the CPU market, and without direction, the Cyrix engineers left one by one. By the time National Semiconductor sold Cyrix to VIA Technologies. National Semiconductor retained the MediaGX design for a few more years, renaming it the Geode and hoping to sell it as an integrated processor. They sold the Geode to AMD in 2003.

Cyrix Corporation headquartered in Richardson, Texas, was a leading supplier of high-performance processors to the personal computer industry. The company designed, manufactured innovative Windows™-compatible processors. Cyrix customers include Acer, Compaq, CTX, Cybermax, Fujitsu, IBM, NEC, Samsung and Vobis. The Cyrix 6×86 processor has been recognized for its performance with awards from a number of publications, including Byte Magazine’s Best Technology at CeBIT’96, Computer Reseller News’ Editor’s Choice Award, PC Week’s Corporate IT Excellence Award and Computer Shopper’s Direct Channel Excellence Award.

Cyrix Semiconductor was founded in 1988 by Jerry Rodgers, who with the help of a small but elite team of fellow ex-Texas Instruments engineers built a fabless semiconductor design company that created CPU chips. Their technical performance rivaled, and even surpassed, that of industry giants Intel, IBM and AMD. At various times, the actual manufacture of Cyrix chips was done by Texas Instruments, SGS Thomson and IBM. Over the course of time, rigorous competition with much better funded competitors and patent infringement lawsuits weakened Cyrix and forced it to seek financially stronger partners. Cyrix was eventually sold to National Semiconductor in 1997.