MIPS Technologies Announces Availability of Android Platform on MIPS(R) Architecture
June 01 2009 - 8:00AM
PR Newswire (US)
Ecosystem Rallies behind Initiative to Drive Android beyond Mobile
Handsets 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
http://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
http://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.
DATASOURCE: MIPS Technologies, Inc. CONTACT: Jen Bernier of MIPS
Technologies, +1-408-530-5178, Web Site: http://www.mips.com/
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