Ingenic combines MIPS, Imagination in tablet SoC

LONDON – China's Ingenic Semiconductor has introduced a small, dual-core MIPS-based application processor and said it plans to demonstrate the chip in a 10-inch Android tablet computer during the Consumer Electronics Show this week in Las Vegas.

A small die area of 30 mm² should make the processor suitable for cost-sensitive applications where designers can't afford the latest quad-core devices based on 28-nm CMOS technology.

The Xburst processor consumes 140-mW per gigahertz under full load, according to MIPS Technologies, operates at up to 1.3 GHz and is implemented in 40-nm CMOS. The chip features a second Xburst processor serving as a video processor unit to perform both encode and decode of 1080p video.

Founded in 2005, Ingenic (Beijing) has brought out a series of processors based on the MIPS architecture. The latest chip, the JZ4780, includes PowerVR SGX Series5 graphics technology licensed from Imagination Technologies Group that performs both 2- and 3-D graphics rendering and supports OpenGL ES2.0 standard and OpenVG 1.1.

The JZ4780 integrates HDMI, LVDS, audio codec, GPS baseband and other analog/application blocks and interconnect interfaces. "We have seen significant adoption of the previous generation JZ4770 SoC, and our customers are excited to tap the performance and functionality of this new SoC for their next generation tablets and other consumer electronics products," Qiang Liu, chairman and CEO of Ingenic Semiconductor, said in a statement released by MIPS.

Along with demonstrating a 10-inch tablet reference design, Ingenic plans a version of the tablet that includes a MIPS-based FourGee chip set from Altair Semiconductor that provides LTE connectivity.

"Now that the MIPS architecture is completely supported in Android releases from Google, Android devices based on MIPS can take advantage of a broad range of applications," said Gideon Intrater, vice president of marketing at MIPS.

Customers such as Karbonn Mobiles  of India and iPPea Inc. (Laguna Niguel, Calif.) said they plan to release Android-based products based on Ingenic's JZ4780 processor.


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