MIPS Technologies Announces PMC-Sierra Licensing Agreement for a Broad Range of Processor Cores

SUNNYVALE, Calif. – October 1, 2010 – MIPS Technologies, Inc. (NASDAQ: MIPS), a leading provider of industry-standard processor architectures and cores for digital consumer, home networking, wireless, communications and business applications, announced today that long-time MIPS customer PMC-Sierra (NASDAQ: PMCS) is licensing a broad range of MIPS32® processor cores. The cores offer an extensive range of options—from small-footprint to multi-threaded multicore solutions—for next generation designs. PMC-Sierra will use the cores to power chips for an array of applications.

Included in the agreement are MIPS32 cores including the 4KEm™ Pro, 24Kc™ Pro, 34Kc™ Pro, 74Kc™ and 1004Kc™ cores as well as the MIPS® SOC-it L2 Cache Controller. The new agreement also includes the new MIPS32 M14K™ and M14Kc™ cores that execute the microMIPS™ instruction set architecture (ISA) for an advanced level of code compression.

“MIPS provides the high performance, low power, and scalability needed for many storage and networking applications, together with a broad ecosystem of third party support. MIPS Technologies’ multi-threading capability also enables us to develop the higher performance, lower power solutions our customers require,” said Tom Snodgrass, vice president of product development, Enterprise Storage Division, PMC-Sierra.

An example of the benefits of multi-threading in PMC-Sierra products is the company’s new maxRAID™ architecture that reportedly produces performance far beyond other current market solutions for RAID and server storage. The extendible architecture features three multi-threaded MIPS32 34K™ cores.

“PMC-Sierra is leveraging the strengths of MIPS’ entire line of processor cores to provide optimal application-specific solutions to its customers,” said Art Swift, vice president of marketing, MIPS Technologies. “Through PMC-Sierra, the MIPS architecture is making strong inroads into the networked and server storage market and other burgeoning markets. Our long- time, close relationship with PMC-Sierra has resulted in some of the industry’s most innovative solutions for these markets, and we are excited to see where the company takes MIPS in its next-generation products.”