The company is known within the computer architecture community as it published articles in technical journals in the early 1990s that described how an out-of-order with speculative execution CPU might be designed.
It is rumored that Metaflow collaborated with the Intel team that would eventually design the Pentium Pro, the first commercially available Out-of-Order x86 processor.
Begun in 1985, the company's first project, a SPARC-based ECL gate-array processor, was supplanted in 1989 by Lightning, a CMOS design backed by funding and IC-design resources from Hyundai.
But the division of labor between the two companies proved stormy, and in 1991 Lightning was discharged, creating Thunder—a 0.8-micrometre three-chip processor designed entirely by Metaflow.
"[citation needed] Sources have also revealed that Intel actually tried to buy Metaflow, but Andy Grove, unable to come to terms with Hyundai, had to abort the purchase.
The Pentium Pro using a centralized reservation station and instant repair of out-of-order and speculative execution, bears the clear mark of Metaflow¹s involvement.