SCIENCE

MIPS Technologies has announced recently that Altair Semiconductor, the world's leading developer of ultra-low power, small footprint and high-performance 4G LTE chipsets, licensed MIPS Technologies' multi-threaded synthesizable processor IP for next-generation chipsets targeting mobile broadband baseband and modem applications for mobile devices. Altair is a long-time MIPS licensee, leveraging the MIPS architecture across its entire line of LTE chipsets.

"We are pleased to work closely with MIPS Technologies as we continue to build on our worldwide leadership position in commercializing 4G LTE chipsets for use in a wide range of products, including USB modems, customer premises equipment, smartphones and handheld devices," said Eran Eshed, co-founder and VP of marketing and business development at Altair Semiconductor. "The multi-threading in MIPS cores provides high performance, quality of service (QoS), low power, real-time scheduling and other benefits that will further enhance our product line, providing Altair with a significant competitive advantage as we begin the rollout of our technology to hundreds of millions of consumers around the world."

Altair's commercially-ready FourGee LTE chipsets are based on a novel software defined radio (SDR) architecture. The chipsets have recently been selected by Polish service provider Mobyland to power the first commercial-grade deployment available on an 1800MHz LTE network, while AVM, one of the largest manufacturers of DSL Integrated Access Devices in Europe, selected Altair's chipsets to power the AVM FRITZ!Box LTE being used during O2's upcoming digital dividend and 2.6GHz friendly user trials in Germany. Additionally, Altair's FourGee chipsets are currently deployed in numerous service provider field trials worldwide.

"As data traffic and HD content continue to drive up internet bandwidth requirements, the world will increasingly move to 4G technologies. Altair is aggressively introducing its high-performance, ultra low-power devices based on the MIPS architecture into markets across the globe that can benefit from our combined technologies. MIPS Technologies' multi-threading capability is a strong competitive differentiator for MIPS licensees in applications such as LTE baseband, where it significantly adds to increased performance and decreased power consumption," said Art Swift, vice president of marketing and business development, MIPS Technologies.

Demonstrations at Mobile World Congress
Altair will feature demonstrations of its FourGee technology in its hospitality suite, number 4.6HS63, and at various customer and partner stands at Mobile World Congress, being held February 14 – 17, 2011 in Barcelona, Spain. As part of the demonstrations, various terminal form factors such an USB dongles, fixed and portable routers and embedded modules will operate against live LTE base stations for both FDD and TDD modes. MIPS will also feature Altair's FourGee-3100/6200-based USB dongles and an embedded mPCIe module in its demo suite at the show, number 4.6HS57.