MIPS architecture processors: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 22:54, 3 June 2021

Revision as of 17:59, 28 August 2021

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=== Licensable architecture ===

In the early 1990s, MIPS began to [[license]] their designs to third-party vendors. This proved fairly successful due to the simplicity of the core, which allowed it to have many uses that would have formerly used much less able [[complex instruction set computer]] (CISC) designs of similar [[gate count]] and price; the two are strongly related: the price of a CPU is generally related to the number of gates and the number of external pins. [[Sun Microsystems]] attempted to enjoy similar success by licensing their [[SPARC]] core but was not nearly as successful. By the late 1990s, MIPS was a powerhouse in the [[embedded processor]] field. According to MIPS Technologies Inc., there was an exponential growth, with 48-million MIPS-based CPU shipments and 49% of total RISC CPU market share in 1997.<ref name="MIPS Brochure">{{cite web |url=http://www.warthman.com/images/MIPS%20Brochure%20Optimized.pdf |title=MIPS Brochure |publisher=MIPS Technologies Inc. |access-date=March 2, 2013}}</ref> MIPS was so successful that SGI spun off MIPS Technologies in 1998. FullyIn 2000s fully half of MIPS's income today comescame from licensing their designs, while much of the rest comescame from contract design work on cores that will then be produced byfor third parties.

In 1999, MIPS Technologies replaced the previous versions of the MIPS architecture with two architectures, the 32-bit ''MIPS32'' (based on MIPS II with some added features from MIPS III, MIPS IV, and MIPS V) and the 64-bit ''MIPS64'' (based on MIPS V) for licensing. Nippon Electric Corporation ([[NEC]]), [[Toshiba]], and [[SiByte]] (later acquired by [[Broadcom]]) each obtained licenses for the MIPS64 as soon as it was announced. [[Philips]], [[LSI Corporation|LSI Logic]] and [[Integrated Device Technology]] (IDT) have since joined them. Today, the MIPS cores are one of the most-used "heavyweight"{{Clarify|date=June 2009}} cores in the market for computer-like devices: [[handheld PC]]s, set-top boxes, etc.