Altair Semiconductor’s MIPS-based FourGee LTE chipset have been designed into Android 4.0 “Ice Cream Sandwich” tablets from Beijing-based mobile processor firm Ingenic.
Originally announced in December 2011, the Ingenic tablet is one of the first Android 4.0 tablets. It will be sampled to customers in the second quarter of this year, with potential commercial availability in the second half of 2012.
“Our MIPS-Based Android 4.0 tablet, which features 1GHz performance along with an innovative ultra-low-power pipelining architecture, is already in production with multiple OEMs,” said Qiang Liu, chairman and CEO, Ingenic Semiconductor.
"When we made the decision to add 4G connectivity to this groundbreaking tablet, it was clear that Altair was the most suitable partner for Ingenic," said Qiang.
This device is expected to provide MIPS with an entry into the Android OS based tablet processor market.
See: MIPS bites into Ice Cream Sandwich with Android tablet
Through its partnership with Ingenic, MIPS is already seeing its first design wins in smartphone and tablets in China.
This is significant because it sees MIPS having success with its MIPS32 architecture in the low power mobile processor market dominated by ARM.
Action Semiconductor, another Chinese chip firm, is also using the MIPS processor core in its mobile SoCs.
“Through innovative licensees such as Ingenic, the MIPS architecture is proving to be the credible alternative for the next generation of smart mobile devices,” said Art Swift, v-p of marketing and business development, MIPS Technologies.
During Mobile World Congress, being held February 27 – March 1, 2012 in Barcelona, MIPS and Altair will demonstrate a prototype of the new solution integrating the Ingenic tablet with Altair’s FourGee chipset.
www.altair-semi.com
www.ingenic.cn
www.mips.com