Yoshida in Japan: Imagination reimagined in Asia

YOKOHAMA, Japan – U.K.-based Imagination Technologies, which just announced plans to buy MIPS Technologies, showed up here this week at Embedded Technology 2012.

Is Imagination ditching its usual date with Electronica, the big European tech exhibition going on this week in Munich? “No, we didn’t ditch it, but we have been coming to this [Embedded Technology] show for a long time,” David Harold, PR director at Imagination, said politely. But actions speak louder than words.

Imagination is clearly signaling the company’s ambitions in greater Asia — especially China.


Japan was a very profitable market to MIPS. Several Japanese electronics companies, including NEC, Toshiba and Sony, paid plenty to obtain a MIPS architectural license. A host of home entertainment systems such as DVD, Blu-ray, set tops and TVs have all been designed and built by Japanese consumer electronics companies based on MIPS CPUs.

With its pending MIPS acquisition, is Imagination hoping to spread its graphics IP cores among MIPS licensees in Japan?

Harold said Imagination was established in the Japanese market long before the MIPS deal .