Toshiba Corp., a longtime core licensee and partner of MIPS Technologies Inc., has formed a strategic alliance with Denso Corp. of Japan to develop next-generation car navigational devices using MIPS microprocessors. The alliance represents the first use of the architecture for the automotive market, MIPS said.

Separately, another MIPS licensee, Broadcom Corp., has netted a design win in Echostar's satellite Dish 322 and Dish Player-DVR 522 products, bolstering the architecture's piece of the set-top-box market.

According to MIPS, the strategic partnership between Toshiba and Denso includes co-development and implementation of a multi-operating-system platform that forms the basis for advanced system-on-chip designs. It will enable uITRON-the predominant OS for deeply embedded devices targeted for the Japanese market-and Windows Automotive in a single environment that will use the MIPS architecture to build user applications such as Internet and network connectivity and the delivery of audio and video content. Denso demonstrated its Toshiba-developed MIPS-based TX49 processor running Denso's car navigation system recently at the TRON Show in Tokyo.

MIPS also said that Broadcom's design wins in Echostar's satellite Dish 322 and Dish Player-DVR 522 have strengthened MIPS' market share in the set-top box market. Based on reports from several research firms, its architecture has close to a 30 percent share, the company said.

MIPS said that in addition to the Echostar players, the MIPS architecture is used in Hughes Network Systems' HDVR2 DirecTV DVR with TiVo; Motorola's DCT 2500, DCT 2600 and DCT-5100 Series; and Pace's Pace 500 series, used by Time Warner Cable. Also using MIPS are Pioneer's Voyager 3000 cable set-top box; Scientific-Atlanta's 3250HD and 4200HD models; Sony's CoCoon personal video recorder (PVR); TiVo's Series 2; Galaxis' LinuxTV model; and RCA's RW2100 Internet receiver.

MIPS said that stepped-up competition in the set-top-box market requires OEMs and semiconductor companies to produce innovative products that incorporate features such as entertainment-on-demand, interactive and real-time participation, and PVR functionality. MIPS claims its architecture is suited to those requirements.

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