Lexra

Lexra was a semiconductor intellectual property core company based in Waltham, Massachusetts. It was founded in 1997 and began developing and licensing semiconductor intellectual property cores that implemented the MIPS-I instruction set, except for the four unaligned load and store (lwl, lwr, swl, swr) instructions.

Lexra did not implement those instructions because they are not necessary for good performance in modern software and Silicon Graphics owned a patent that had originally been granted to MIPS Computer Systems Inc. for implementing unaligned loads and stores in a RISC processor and Lexra did not wish to pay a high license fee for permission to use the patent.

Lexra licensed soft cores unlike ARM Ltd at the time. Lexra was probably the first semiconductor intellectual property core company to do so.

In 1998 Silicon Graphics spun out MIPS Technologies Inc. as a Semiconductor IP licensing company that would compete directly with Lexra. MIPS Technologies sued Lexra claiming a trademark infringement for Lexra's claims of compatibility with the MIPS-I instruction set. Lexra and MIPS Technologies settled the dispute by agreeing that in all public statements Lexra would clearly state that it did not implement unaligned loads and stores.