Altair to Deploy MIPS' Multi-Threaded Synthesizable Processor IP for Next-Gen Chipsets

Altair Semiconductor, a developer of ultra-low power, small footprint and high performance 4G semiconductors, will be making use of  MIPS Technologies’ multi-threaded synthesizable processor IP to build next-gen chipsets for mobile broadband baseband and modem applications.

Altair has been a long time MIPS licensee and has used the MIPS architecture across its LTE (News - Alert) chipsets. The new next-gen chips will on demonstration at the Mobile World Congress 2011. The demo will also include various terminal form factors such as USB dongles, fixed and portable routers and embedded modules functioning against live LTE base stations for both FDD and TDD modes.

Altair expressed its excitement to work with MIPS as it continues to build on its “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. 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 products, providing Altair with a significant competitive advantage as it begins the rollout of its technology to hundreds of millions of consumers around the world.

Altair explained that it offers a FourGee-based LTE development and evaluation platform which provides designers with easy access to the solution's various hardware components as well as the processor's protocol stack layers, which are relevant as part of the development and integration within the end device.

Recently, Polish service provider Mobyland selected these solutions to power its first commercial-grade deployment available on an 1800MHz LTE network.

Art Swift (News - Alert), vice president of marketing and business development at MIPS Technologies added that 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 the combined technologies of both the companies.

“MIPS Technologies' (News - Alert) 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 Swift.