MIPS Technologies, Inc. - Computer Hardware

(650) 567-5000

1225 Charlestown Road

Mountain View, CA 94043-1353
www.mips.com

Business Description

MIPS Technologies, Inc. is a leading developer of embedded processors and related intellectual property for use in markets such as digital consumer, wired and wireless communications (including broadband access), office automation, security, and automotive. Over more than twenty years, MIPS has developed and licensed a wide range of reduced instruction set computers, or "RISC" processor architectures and cores. The flexibility, performance, and cost of these architectures and cores have resulted in broad usage, and a broad base of suppliers have designed their products, usually software or tools, to operate with our MIPS architecture products. MIPS is the hub of an environment—what we call an "ecosystem"—that includes these suppliers, together with our semiconductor licensees and their system level customers. This ecosystem has been responsible for mutually reinforcing innovations across a broad spectrum of markets and applications.

Our business model is based on the licensing of microprocessor intellectual property or "IP" as both architectures and implementations. Microprocessor IP requires considerable development efforts in order to create a product but once created, it can be licensed for use to multiple parties and distributed electronically. We license our IP products for prices ranging from a few hundred thousand dollars to millions of dollars depending upon the technology involved and the specifics of the license. Once our IP has been incorporated into our licensees' products, which may take several months to several years, we receive royalties from our licensees that are usually a few percent of the selling price of the licensee's products.