SUNNYVALE, Calif. and TAIPEI, Taiwan, June 1 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- MIPS Technologies, Inc. (NASDAQ: MIPS), a leading provider of industry-standard processor architectures and cores for home entertainment, communications, networking and portable multimedia markets, today announced availability of the Android(TM) platform on its industry-standard MIPS(R) architecture. The company also announced it will make the MIPS-optimized source code publicly available within 60 days. This move, backed by several ecosystem partners--with more to come--brings Android to the vast MIPS development community across the world, which can now begin using this revolutionary platform for consumer devices such as DTVs, mobile internet devices (MIDs), digital picture frames (DPFs) and set-top boxes.
Separately today, MIPS announced that its licensees are demonstrating Android running on MIPS-Based(TM) products at COMPUTEX TAIPEI. Additionally, the company announced it has joined the Open Embedded Software Foundation (OESF), an organization focused on standardization and development of Android platforms for embedded devices beyond mobile handsets.
Android provides a common framework across devices to leverage the large number of software application developers that are writing applications for the Android market. Initially finding success in the mobile phone market, Android is now set to move into other digital consumer devices. With MIPS Technologies' leadership position in the digital home, this announcement lays the groundwork to enable Android for these products. Android's ready-to-use software stack provides a device-agnostic application development platform, and a common framework for the industry. With Android and the dynamic open source development community around it, developers can easily and quickly create new applications and OEMs can leverage the growing set of applications for their devices. With the MIPS ecosystem around Android, OEMs will be able to quickly optimize Android for their specific platforms.
"In the future, almost every consumer device will be connected to the Internet and its wide array of content, delivering a wealth of applications for a richer user experience," said Rich Wawrzyniak, senior analyst, ASIC and SoC, Semico Research Corporation. "Leveraging Android to quickly and easily bring new and innovative applications and user interfaces to devices beyond the mobile phone is a very appealing proposition for consumers. Android also removes applications from their ties to specific hardware systems and opens the market for companies like MIPS Technologies to move into new market segments. I can understand why MIPS' partners and licensees are excited about Android on MIPS. It is a potential game changer."
"MIPS is excited to enable Android for the consumer electronics markets where we are traditionally strong, and also to proliferate MIPS into new markets - such as the emerging MID segment," said Art Swift, vice president of marketing, MIPS Technologies. "The heightened multimedia and software requirements of these next-generation connected devices demand high performance. As Android extends into these new markets, the processing power of MIPS can really be a powerful differentiator."
MIPS Ecosystem Rallies behind Initiative
To further development efforts around Android on the MIPS architecture, members of the MIPS ecosystem are rallying behind the effort. MIPS Technologies is establishing development tools and system integration partnerships with service providers to help its licensees with porting, integration, and testing. Partnerships initially include those with Embedded Alley and Viosoft Corporation.
Embedded Alley, a leading provider of embedded Linux solutions, is offering support for SoC implementations from MIPS Technologies' licensees. The Embedded Alley Development System for Android-based Devices includes processor and board support as well as a version of the Android Dalvik virtual machine (VM) optimized for the MIPS instruction set and CPU cores; extending the Android bionic library, linker and other software infrastructure for the MIPS architecture; and providing integration and testing board support industry-specific device drivers, CODECs and other middleware. Embedded Alley is already enabling Android on devices built with the Alchemy Processor family from RMI--providing an Android-ready Linux kernel for RMI Au1250 and the Embedded Alley Development System for Alchemy reference platforms.
"Embedded Alley and MIPS Technologies have been working closely to deliver value to our mutual customers," said Matthew Locke, COO, Embedded Alley. "Following the success of Android in the mobile phone market, many companies have been looking at the potential of Android beyond mobile handsets, but it just wasn't clear how to make Android a reality for other types of devices. Embedded Alley, together with MIPS -- a strong leader in the digital home marketplace -- has determined what it will take, and we are making it happen. We are enabling OEMs and developers to create new Android-based designs."
Viosoft Corporation, a pioneer of fully integrated embedded Linux software solutions, is a key partner for MIPS based software development tools. Viosoft's Arriba tools deliver comprehensive support for single and multi-core platforms. The tools support Android, and are available today.
"The MIPS architecture has consistently delivered high-performance Linux platforms with low power consumption, making it ideal for VM-based environments such as Android," said Art Lee, vice president of business development, Viosoft Corporation. "To enable the porting, debugging and deployment of the Android platform on MIPS, Viosoft provides a set of unique and very powerful tools that dramatically reduce development time, risk and costs. Working closely with MIPS Technologies, we are focused on helping OEMs quickly and easily bring their Android platforms to market."
"With the rich ecosystem we are assembling and the work we have done to support the Android platform on the MIPS architecture, we believe that production-ready Android devices will come to market quickly," said Udi Kalekin, vice president of software engineering at MIPS. "To make porting easy for our customers, we are releasing our code to open source and the large community of Android developers. This will give all MIPS customers, partners, and developers access to the platform to quickly and easily build compelling next-generation devices."
For more information about the Android platform and MIPS, please visit www.mips.com/android.
About MIPS Technologies, Inc.
MIPS Technologies, Inc. (NASDAQ: MIPS) is a leading provider of industry-standard processor architectures and cores that power some of the world's most popular products for the home entertainment, communications, networking and portable multimedia markets. These include broadband devices from Linksys, DTVs and digital consumer devices from Sony, DVD recordable devices from Pioneer, digital set-top boxes from Motorola, network routers from Cisco, 32-bit microcontrollers from Microchip Technology and laser printers from Hewlett-Packard. Founded in 1998, MIPS Technologies is headquartered in Sunnyvale, California, with offices worldwide. For more information, contact (408) 530-5000 or visit www.mips.com.
MIPS and MIPS-Based are trademarks or registered trademarks in the United States and other countries of MIPS Technologies, Inc. All other trademarks referred to herein are the property of their respective owners.
Android is a trademark of Google Inc. Use of this trademark is subject to Google Permissions.
Web site: http://www.mips.com/