Counterpoint: MIPS in handsets -- why not?

Jonah Probell
EETimes (10/12/2009 7:12 AM EDT)

Editor's note: This article was submitted in response to the story recently apeared on eetimes.com.

An old adage in the processor business is that 'software sells hardware'. More specifically, operating system support enables the market for an instruction set architecture (ISA).

The success of Intel and AMD's x86 ISA has been due largely to MS Windows' exclusive support. MIPS lost a great opportunity when Microsoft dropped the MIPS support that was built into early versions of Windows NT in the early 1990s.

ARM's success in mobile phones was due largely to Symbian's decision to support only the ARM ISA. This was the result of a mid-1990s decision by TI to use ARM in its mobile phone ASICs for Nokia.

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