Hey FJ, I don't think they were ever "kicked to the kerb" when the Company changed, or affirmed a strategy of selling IP..
If there were buyers for the volume of chips, that we have, I think they would have just sold them..
Pretty sure it was stated at the time, of being the start of a mass production run, so there should have been possibly a few 10s of thousands produced (although we don't know and will never know the yield percentage, with Anil on the job, I suspect it would be pretty high).
With the speed of change in technology, I think it was a wise move, to follow the IP route, but even better now, with a multi-pronged strategy.
Some keep banging on (yes I'm talking about you Iseki

) that we need to produce an AKD2000 reference chip, but there is no need as the tech can be played with in simulation.
Before the AKD1000 ES and reference chips, anybody looking at the simulations, would have thought "Yeah looks incredible, but can you really do that on a chip?"..
We don't have that problem anymore, as the core technology has been proven, in 2 processes (AKD1500).