MIPS set to go mobile

China is first market for mobile devices

MIPS (NASDAQ:MIPS)of California is now positioning itself as a credible alternative to ARM in the mobile space.

According to Art Swift, President of Marketing at MIPS, the company can deliver a higher performance both in terms of real estate and relative power consumption when compared to ARM.  MIPS so far has only had a few design wins in the mobile space and these have been in China, but the company is positioning itself for a more important role.

As far as graphics goes MIPS has decided not to develop its own graphics core, but rather work with third parties like Imagination.

As for manufacturing MIPS is partnering with GlobalFoundries and TSMC out of Taiwan and to a lesser extent with SMicroelectronics, that’s so far has been favored by ICT of China who is a MIPS licensee.

MIPS is concentrating on the embedded space including mobile devices and going all the way up to embedded servers in the vertical space such as storage.

Some licensees, however are also using their cores for supercomputing. ICT in China is a primary example of a company that is using the core in the server space and currently developing a processor with 64 cores taking up 400 mm2 on 22nm process technology.  MIPS has just recently unveiled its complete 64 bit strategy allowing the company to supply complete solutions with up to 4 cores in a 64 bit architecture.S|A

The following two tabs change content below.