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Hope for MIPS, From Toshiba

Posted by timothy on from the chips-from-the-alternate-universe dept.

CDWert writes: "EE Times is reporting MIPS is teaming up with Toshiba, to develop their next generation 64 bit proccesor. After all the Itanium Speak and X86-64 talk going on here and the premature predictions of MIPS demise, through their inability to fund the next round I thought this would be refresing to MIPS fans." According to the article though, there will be no product until at least a year from now.

6 of 166 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Embedded... by Winjer2k · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I was wondering the same thing until I realized:

    64-bit AIBO's!!!

    But, seriously, I have a hard time seeing why my digital camera or PVR needs a 64-bit processor.

    --
    I sig for world peace
  2. Re:Embedded...why not? by fferreres · · Score: 2, Insightful

    But that's not the important part. The important stuff is that the cost of production is the same for a 64 or 32 bits processor (research costs sunk, like in this case). So, argument is why use a larger, less powerfull chip if they can use a better, smaller chip.

    Also, legacy compatibility is less important in embedded devices than any other market i can think of (and specially consumer PCs).

    --
    unfinished: (adj.)
  3. ARM by OverCode@work · · Score: 4, Insightful

    This is just speculation, but I think ARM is putting a lot of pressure on MIPS in the embedded market. The ARM is almost as much of a pleasure to work with as MIPS at the assembly level, and it uses very little power. This is why Intel's StrongARM version of the ARM has found its way into many PDA's and other portable devices.

    -John

  4. Re:MIPS is beauty in simplicity. by Phosphor3k · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Have you ever programmed in 32 bit x86 assembly? Methinks you have not, if you consider EAX baggage....

  5. Re:no product for a year? MIPS is dead afterall! by jsfetzik · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Depends on the product. There is little point in announcing a Segway long before it is ready, except to get the media hype working.

    To have a successful microprocessor launch you pretty much need a year so third party vendors can get up to steam on their products(compilers, motherboards, chipsets, etc.). You also want to get some end user projects rolling, with alpha chips, so you can brag about design wins when you do start shipping in volume.

    Of course this is all in addition to marketing and stock market reasons for early announcements.

  6. Re:Wonder if this will have an effect on SGI by binaryDigit · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Perhaps a port to Power/PowerPC? I know it's tough since IBM is a workstation competitor, but do they really compete? How many graphics workstation accounts have they lost to IBM I wonder, probably not too many. I guess they do compete for servers though.

    What might really be cool is if IBM acquired SGI and made them their specialized graphics workstation division. This way SGI can stop spinning cycles developing servers and focus on high powered graphics. The thought of an Onyx running on a POWER4 cpu is quite intoxicating.

    MIPS would survive on its core (fogive the pun) business of supplying embedded systems (including PS1/PS2/PSn).