SUNNYVALE, Calif. and ZHUHAI, China – May 31, 2011 – MIPS Technologies, Inc. (NASDAQ: MIPS), a leading provider of industry-standard processor architectures and cores for digital home, networking and mobile applications, and Actions Semiconductor Co., Ltd. (NASDAQ: ACTS), one of China’s leading fabless semiconductor companies that provides solutions for portable consumer electronics, announced that they are collaborating to bring Android™ 3.0, also known as “Honeycomb,” to a new 1.3GHz MIPS-Based™ chipset from Actions. Honeycomb is the newest version of the Android operating system designed specifically for tablets and other large format products. After recently announcing that it is porting Honeycomb to the MIPS® architecture, MIPS is now porting Honeycomb to MIPS-Based™ tablets, with support from Actions.
The new high-performance system-on-chip (SoC) from Actions leverages a superscalar MIPS32® 74Kf™ core (with floating point unit) running at 1.3GHz. In addition to Android, the new chip incorporates an OpenGL ES 2.0 3D graphics processing unit, USB 2.0 OTG, HDMI 1.3, support for multi-format high definition 1080p video encoding and decoding, and other advanced functionality. Actions and MIPS will also work together to enable the platform with Adobe® Flash® Player 10.2 optimized for the MIPS® architecture.
“With its new 1.3GHz chip specifically designed for tablets, Actions is a flag bearer for the MIPS architecture in the mobile market,” said Art Swift, vice president of marketing and business development, MIPS Technologies. “This is one of the first times a MIPS licensee has achieved such high frequency with a MIPS-Based SoC targeted for mobile applications. As MIPS continues to make inroads into the mobile market, we are working closely with innovative licensees such as Actions to enable them to deliver fully optimized MIPS-Based solutions for their specific target applications.”
“With the MIPS architecture, we are able to achieve extremely high performance with power efficiency that differentiates our solutions in the market. For more than 10 years, Actions has experienced success in the market with SoCs for portable consumer electronics. Our MIPS-Based chips are already shipping in portable media player products including our Series 23, 25, 27, game family G1000, tablet family ATM70, and a feature phone. Now we are pleased to collaborate with MIPS to deliver a chip specifically designed for tablets. Into this SoC we have integrated the most advanced technologies that will provide an ideal user experience,” said Robert Wang, vice president of marketing, Actions Semiconductor.
Availability
The new chip from Actions will be available in the third quarter of 2011.
About Actions Semiconductor
Actions Semiconductor is one of China’s leading fabless semiconductor companies that provides mixed-signal and multimedia SoC solutions for portable consumer electronics. Actions Semiconductor products include SoCs, firmware, software, solution development kits, as well as detailed specifications of other required components and the providers of those components. Actions Semiconductor also provides total product and technology solutions that allow customers to quickly introduce new portable consumer electronics to the mass market in a cost effective way. The company is headquartered in Zhuhai, China, with offices in Beijing, Shanghai, and Shenzhen. For more information, please visit the Actions Semiconductor website at http://www.actions-semi.com.
About MIPS Technologies, Inc. (www.mips.com)
MIPS Technologies, Inc. (NasdaqGS: 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.
