MIPS Sees Once-In-A-Generation Opportunity

Android, the mobile phone OS from Google, is the Trojan Horse for breaking the ARM/Symbian monopoly in the wireless industry, according to Sandeep Vij, CEO of MIPS, speaking at the Globalpress Summit Conference in Santa Cruz last night.

“Android represents an opportunity that comes around once in a generation and we’re going to take advantage of it”, Vij told the conference.

The reason why Android represents a new opportunity is, according to Vij, because: “The OS is in middleware.”

By having the OS in middleware, rather than close coupled to the microprocessor, the choice of microprocessor becomes irrelevant and can be made purely on the performance characteristics of the silicon. So ARM or Atom have no inherent advantage over anyone else. That’s the theory.

“Stanford took the power of Linux and put it in a middleware OS and the biggest barrier to entry for MIPS has been removed”, said Vij.

The three USPs for Android, said Vij, is that: “It harnesses the power of Linux; it is backed by Google, and it’s free.”

He’s enthused by the rumours that ARM may be bought by Apple. When Apple bought PA Semis, it cut off the external sales. If the same thing happened with ARM, it would probably mean that innovation on the ARM architecture would be ended, or confined to Apple, and the wireless chip industry would be looking for another core. He hinted that people had been in touch with MIPS about the possibility of them filling that gap.

As well as the wireless market, MIPS is looking for other opportunities of replacing incumbent architectures.

“We’re leveraging strong growth in the networking market”, said Vij, “there’s a trend of MIPS replacing PowerPC at the core of the network. You can see that from the success of Cavium and NetLogic – two of the fastest growing chip companies – and the not so startling success of Freescale, because companies are moving from PowerPC to MIPS. Networking companies are looking to MIPS cores to power their chips.”

On the state of the industry in general, Vij is pretty happy. “The industry has rebounded very well, some would say too well”, he said, “the revenues and profits of the companies we serve are doing much better.”