Apple chip technology’s main supplier, Imagination will purchase the operating business of MIPS, which is one amongst the oldest names in the silicon business.
Imagination Technologies, which is based in United Kingdom, is the key supplier of graphics chips. This UK Company is all set to acquire MIPS Technologies, which is a big supplier of power-efficient chips utilized in set-top boxes, game machines, and routers.
The contract is valued at around USD 60 million and Imagination will obtain 92 ‘key’ patents, which are pertinent to the MIPs architecture directly and will also get complete license rights to rest of the 498 patents of MIPS, totaling to 580 patents in all.
Imagination, which is mainly known as the supplier of Graphics Processing Unit (GPU), will obtain access to the Central Processing Unit (CPU) technology of MIPS, letting it to take over ARM, the global leader in the field of smartphone CPUs.
Hossein Yassaie, the CEO of Imagination Technologies said that MIPS is the firm that found RISC CPU architecture. He believes that the combination of their existing CPU technologies with the capabilities of MIPS will assist them to form a new force to be thought of in the CPU IP market.
The chips produced by MIPS have been used in Windows CE devices, Sony PlayStation Portable series, Motorola TV set-top boxes, and Cisco network routers. Windows NT operating system from Microsoft, which was launched in 1993, was actually designed to work on MIPS processors in addition to other chip architectures. Overall, MIPS is one amongst the most respectable names in the chip field.
Around 700 million chips designed based on the technology from MIPS were distributed globally in the financial year that ended during June. This generated revenue of almost $60 million.
Imagination has turned out to be a power in its self right. Imagination’s technology is used in the form of graphics silicon in iPhone 5 and technologies from the company are also used in devices like iPad 4 and Windows 8 tablets.
Discretely, ARM stated that it’ll from Bridge Crossing, a consortium that will purchase the MIPS portfolio rights of 498 patents. The consortium will spend $350 million to buy the patent rights, out of which ARM will donate $167.5 million.
So, both the consortium and MIPS will possess the rights to make use of all 580 patents.