Coherent thinking
Throndson then talked us through the 1074K. It is referred to as a Coherent Processing System and claims industry-leading speed for fully synthesizable mulitcore IP. If you don't know what all that means don't worry, neither did we, so we asked Throndson to explain.
Coherent refers to the ability of each of the cores to cooperate with each other. The absence of this feature means each core remains quite autonomous, but coherent ones share work more dynamically and, just as importantly, are better at powering down when there's no work to do. Fully synthesizable means the design can be adapted to any manufacturing process technology.
You can see how the 1074K fits into the MIPS roadmap in the first slide below. The 74K is positioned as equivalent to an ARM Cortex A9 single-core. Below that is a block diagram of the design, note the amount of resource devoted to coherence.
We were told that the 256 bit bus linking to the L2 cache is another competitive advantage it offers over ARM designs, and that the per MHz power footprint is roughly equivalent to the Cortex A9. While the competitive comparisons were being made, we were also shown the slide below comparing the 1074K to Intel's Atom.
We observed that MIPS is in danger of being frozen out of the CE market it's currently so strong in, with Intel being the launch partner for Google TV and ARM launching its own STB platform. Swift didn't seem concerned about this, saying: "Google has a strategy of going to market with launch partners, but they're only initial."
It's good to see MIPS being so aggressive in taking on Intel and ARM - competition is always a good thing. It's strongly positioned in the CE market, which looks set to be one of the most prominent tech battle-grounds of 2011. Furthermore it views Android as the key to unlock the mobile market, meaning Intel and ARM can't afford to focus solely on each other.
The 1074K is released next month and a lead licensee is already in place. With MIPS added to the mix the tech market over the next few years promises to be even more competitive, dynamic and exciting.
