NEC and Phillips sign partnership agreement

The agreement enables NEC and Philips to produce and market jointly developed products based on the MIPS architecture, with the goal of increasing their market share. The agreement also means that both companies will promote each other as alternative sources for the MIPS architecture.

With consumer devices seeing a rapid convergence of computer and communications technologies, together with demand for a larger number of functions, there are serious performance issues to be resolved. Moreover, there is an increasing necessity for a global platform to handle a new generation of consumer products that offers high performance for games, audio-visual and other equipment.

The suitability of MIPS for this task is already being proven in the market: global sales of these processors have soared in the last two years, with sales rising from 1.7 million units in 1994 to more than 19 million in 1996¹.

Customers will see greater benefits from the strength of this agreement between two of the major players in the field: greater security, such as the security of multi-source availability, greater customer support, together with increased processor functionality and applications.

"Strategic alliances are a core component of Philips' business strategy today and for the future, said Arthur van der Poel, Philips Semiconductors' Chief Executive Officer.

"Philips has a policy of ensuring that customers have immediate access to the latest technologies and the support to exploit these technologies into market-leading products. The agreement confirms both companies' commitment to the MIPS architecture and means that customers can rely on using MIPS as the global platform for developing consumer electronics products."

"Philips is an obvious partner for NEC, as the company's experience in the consumer electronics market coupled with our expertise in developing leading-edge MIPS technology will produce a powerful combination," said Hajime Sasaki, NEC's Senior Executive Vice President responsible for its Semiconductor Group.

Background

NEC and Philips work with the MIPS Group, part of Silicon Graphics Inc., which collaborates with semiconductor partners to design and develop leading-edge microprocessor architectures and software technologies

Philips Semiconductors, a division of Philips Electronics NV, headquartered in Eindhoven, The Netherlands, innovations in digital audio, video, and mobile technology position the company as a leader in the consumer, multimedia and wireless communications markets. Sales offices are located in all major markets around the world, and are supported by regional customer application labs. Additional information on Philips Semiconductors can be obtained by accessing its home page at:
http://www.semiconductors.philips.com