MIPS Android port arrives, aimed at the digital home

MIPS Technologies is preparing to publicly release the source code of its …

Ryan Paul – Aug 5, 2009 8:09 am | 14

MIPS Technologies says that it will soon publish the source code of its port of Android for the MIPS architecture. This could boost adoption of Google’s open source mobile platform on MIPS-based devices.

Android, which is built on top of the Linux kernel, is attracting interest in many segments of the mobile and embedded space. Although it was originally designed for cell phones and is only supported officially by Google on the ARM architecture, it is being ported by third parties to work on other kinds of chips and form factors.

MIPS touts its Android port as a step forward for its “digital home” strategy, part of the company’s emphasis on the suitability of MIPS-based chips for the wide range of consumer electronics products that are outside of the increasingly ARM-dominated smartphone space. In practice, what this means is that we can probably expect to see Android running on a lot more high-end MIPS-based digital photo frames. Some other potential areas where Android on MIPS could be useful include multimedia set-top boxes, VoIP hardware products, and GPS devices.

“We are seeing an enormous amount of customer interest in Android on the MIPS architecture,” said MIPS Technologies marketing VP Art Swift in a statement. “Android presents a compelling value proposition in bringing internet connectivity and a broad range of applications to MIPS-based digital home devices. We are working closely with customers and partners to ensure that critical technologies are available for developers to take advantage of Android for consumer electronics.”

As you may recall, we wrote about Android on MIPS back in April when Embedded Alley announced its own unofficial port and development tools, which were primarily targeting RMI’s Alchemy Au1250 SoC. Last week, Embedded Alley was acquired by Mentor Graphics, one of MIPS Technologies partners for Android. Mentor hopes to encourage adoption of its own Nucleus real-time operating system alongside Linux and Android in mobile and embedded devices.

Although the MIPS Technologies website declares that the code is being made available to the public, that is actually not entirely yet true. It’s initially being made available to select users. In order to get access to the MIPSAndroid.org website and the private git repository, you have to first fill out a registration form and be approved by the site’s administrators. I filled out the form myself and got approval several hours later. The limited access is a temporary measure while they are in the process of rolling out the infrastructure and the code will be more broadly available to the public soon.