Imagination ups MIPS bid in battle with Ceva
Imagination Technologies has increased its bid to acquire the operating business and certain patent properties, as well as license rights to all of the remaining patent properties, of MIPS Technologies to $80 million.
In November the UK-based processor firm offered $60m for the business. However, US silicon IP firm, Ceva has also made an offer to MIPS.
Now Imagination finds itself in bidding war for the processor business.
All other material terms and conditions of the acquisition remain as stated in Imagination’s announcement on 6 November 2012.
Imagination and Ceva are bidding to acquire 82 patent properties directly relevant to the MIPS processor architecture.
This is a significant move for Hertfordshire-based Imagination as it strengthens its presence in the CPU licensing market.
A separate transaction, with MIPS processors patents being sold to a separate group which is led by ARM for $350m, seems to be unaffected by the battle to acquire MIPS.
Importantly, the MIPS 32-bit and 64-bit RISC CPU architectures are directly supported by the Android OS.
MIPS’ customers shipped over 700 million royalty earning chips in its financial year ended 30 June 2012, from 56 royalty-paying licensees.
“MIPS is the company that pioneered the RISC CPU architecture and created an iconic and widely respected technology,” said Hossein Yassaie, CEO, Imagination.
“I believe that the combination of our existing Meta CPU technologies and activities with MIPS’ capabilities will help us to create a new force to be reckoned with in the CPU IP market,” said Yassaie.
“I am confident the acquisition will accelerate our growth in the substantial CPU IP market across many segments,” said Yassaie.
According to Sandeep Vij, president and CEO, MIPS: “It was key for us that our customers and partners were assured of a strong, long term future for MIPS’ architecture, cores and other technologies, and thanks to this agreement we are confident we have found the ideal partner to take that forward.”