Android Device Chip Race: MIPS Takes On ARM

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MIPS Technologies has no intention of leaving the Android device market to semiconductor heavyweight ARM, the company made clear this week. MIPS outlined ambitions to wrestle smartphone and tablet business away from ARM, and perhaps enable its licensees to challenge Apple's mobile products and Apple's internally-designed processors. Sunnyvale-based MIPS, which had announced its proAptiv processor design in May, shared more details during an August 28 presentation at the Hot Chips conference in Silicon Valley. Given mobile industry design timeframes, it may be 2014 before we know if the company's campaign is successful.

MIPS grew out of a project initiated by current Stanford president John Hennessey when he was a professor at the university in 1981. The company has evolved into a chipmaker specializing in consumer electronic components, such as those found in TVs, Blu-ray players, and--most crucially for its fledgling rivalry with ARM--Android devices aimed primarily at emerging markets. With its newest chips, MIPS hopes to leap from role player to star status.

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The proAptiv design is an implementation of the MIPS32 architecture. Citing CoreMark CPU-centric benchmarks, MIPS claims its new product easily outclasses ARM Cortex-A9 cores and is in the same league as the Cortex-A15, ARM's newest architecture.

Neither ARM nor MIPS manufactures its own chips. Instead, both companies license their designs to other companies. Throndson claimed proAptiv fees will be lower than those charged by ARM, noting that the processor's smaller die size will allow more efficient power consumption while reducing silicon costs.

MIPS has already claimed symbolic victories over ARM, such beating its competitor in bringing 64-bit cores to market. Nonetheless, ARM controls much of the non-x86 marketplace thanks to a robust network of partners in the mobile market--something that MIPS currently lacks.

If the new design meets expectations, proAptiv offers a relatively clear path for MIPS to partner with system-on-a-chip designers such as NVIDIA and Qualcomm. Following the May announcement, there was even speculation that Microsoft could benefit from purchasing MIPS, as the acquisition would not only come at low cost (relative to, say, buying ARM) but also provide Apple-like control over internal components.

In media reports, Noel Hurley, ARM's VP of marketing and strategy, has dismissed the chatter as overhyped, and downplayed claims that proAptiv's reportedly smaller size engenders design advantages. ARM touts its chip's Trustzone technology (which facilitates secure payments and digital rights management), plus its virtualization and media processing capabilities.

This war of words is currently transitioning into marketplace skirmishes--but as previously noted, the outcome could be years away. New chip designs take around 18 months to appear in new products, so it will likely be late 2013 or early 2014 before on-paper comparisons become tangible advantages or missteps. In the meantime, industry watchers will keep an eye on the partners MIPS' proAptiv accrues, and whether any of them come at ARM's expense.

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