MIPS Technologies, Inc. announces new MIPS-3D technology to provide silicon-efficient 3D graphics acceleration

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Constance Sweeney MIPS Technologies, Inc. 650-567-5059 cks@mips.com		Mark Ferrone Brodeur Porter Novelli 408-324-4848 mferrone@brodeur.com

MIPS-3D™ Technology Provides Advanced Graphics Instructions Enabling Low-cost, High-performance 3D Image Processing in Embedded Systems

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif, (August 16, 1999) - MIPS Technologies, Inc. (NASDAQ:MIPS) today announced a 3D graphics Application Specific Extension, or ASE, for the MIPS64™ architecture. The new MIPS-3D™ ASE extends the MIPS64 architecture standard with additional graphics-oriented floating point instructions that reduce code size in graphics processing algorithms and increase 3D image processing performance. The combination of the MIPS64 SIMD (single instruction multiple data) capability with the MIPS-3D extensions increases performance by as much as 83 percent. This new standard provides the technology for developing low-cost embedded systems with high performance 3D graphics and image processing capabilities. MIPS-3D™ will be targeted at a variety of applications including set top boxes, game systems, palm-sized PCs, car navigation, mobile communication devices, Internet information appliances and TV/DVD-based entertainment systems. The first implementation of the MIPS-3D ASE will be in the MIPS64 20K™ (code named Ruby) processor family.

"3D graphics has become essential in the embedded market," said Joe Zeh, vice president of Component Products at ATI. "MIPS-3D has the right combination of speed, flexibility and low cost to bring the highest quality geometry performance to the embedded market. Combining MIPS-3D with ATI's leading 3D rendering technology will bring truly compelling graphics for media rich embedded applications to the mass consumer market."

MIPS-3D technology addresses key issues facing developers of advanced digital consumer products based on embedded RISC processors – how to provide feature rich graphics without requiring expensive, dedicated geometry engines or co-processors. By incorporating graphics-specific floating-point instructions through MIPS-3D technology, MIPS Technologies makes adding high performance 3D graphics to MIPS®–based embedded systems much easier and more cost-effective.
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MIPS-3D technology can achieve performance ratings of 25 million polygons/second for transform and clip-check functions, and over 10 million polygons/second for transform and clip-check functions with complex lighting effects. The paired single floating point operations provide SIMD (single instruction multiple data) capabilities by operating on two 32-bit words simultaneously.

"3D graphics will be everywhere," says Derek Meyer, vice president of sales and marketing at MIPS Technologies, Inc. "MIPS-3D technology allows our customers to build embedded chips with awesome graphics at the prices required for consumer products."

By taking advantage of the multi-execution unit architecture and highly parallel internal resources of the 64-bit RISC processor architecture, MIPS-3D can accelerate high-speed 3D graphics geometric operations such as matrix transforms, image clipping functions and lighting effect calculations with very little silicon overhead. MIPS-3D technology achieves faster image processing and 30 percent code size reduction with only a fraction of 1mm2 increase in the die size and no increase needed in other processor resources.

"This is an important extension for future MIPS-based™ embedded processors," said Tom R. Halfhill, an analyst and senior editor at Microprocessor Report. "Video games aren't the only applications that benefit from faster 3D graphics. Information appliances bring home shopping and other forms of electronic commerce into living rooms, and online vendors need good graphics to display their products with the same quality as paper catalogs and magazine ads. In fact, it'll be better, because extensions like MIPS-3D™ will allow consumers to manipulate images in 3D space on inexpensive computing devices."

Consumers can benefit from this new technology through next generation entertainment systems including game devices, DVD-based systems, set top boxes and Internet information appliances that incorporate easy to use and entertaining 3D graphics. The fact that the graphics capabilities are incorporated into MIPS-3D RISC architecture technology, should spur development of more systems that can take advantage of 3D graphics imaging; provide manufacturers with a larger economic base to drive cost down; and provide more captivating user interfaces.

MIPS-3D complements the MIPS64 architecture by adding new geometry processing to its floating point repertoire, which improve application performance in several ways. The paired single reduction add
instruction speeds matrix multiplication, used in vertex transformation. Image clipping is assisted by the paired single absolute compare instruction and the multi condition code branch instruction. The perspective divide operation uses the reciprocal instructions. Lighting operations use the
reciprocal square root instructions for normalization. Fast data conversion is possible with the paired single and paired word convert instructions. (For more technical details see the MIPS-3D product brief located at www.mips.com)

About MIPS Technologies, Inc.
MIPS Technologies, Inc. is the world's primary architect of embedded 32- and 64-bit RISC processors. The company drives the broadest architectural alliance that is delivering 32- and 64-bit embedded RISC
solutions. It offers the only embedded 64-bit RISC architecture for emerging digital consumer, network
systems, and information management applications. The company licenses its intellectual property to
semiconductor manufacturing companies, ASIC developers, and system OEMs. MIPS Technologies, Inc. and its licensees offer the widest range of robust, scalable processors in standard, custom, semi-custom and application-specific products. Developers can choose from a broad menu of price/performance options that include execution units, clock speeds, instruction widths (16-, 32- or 64-bit), cache sizes, memory bandwidths, memory protection schemes, system interfaces, and on-chip system logic.

Licensees currently include: Alchemy Microprocessor Design Group; Broadcom Corporation; CommQuest (IBM); Integrated Device Technology, Inc. (IDT); LSI Logic Corporation; Macronix; NEC Corporation; NKK Corporation; Philips Semiconductors; Quantum Effect Design, Inc. (QED); Sony Corporation; Synova; Texas Instruments Incorporated and Toshiba Corporation. Numerous companies utilize MIPS-based™ intellectual property. MIPS Technologies, Inc. is based in Mountain View, California, and can be reached at 650-567-5000 or http://www.mips.com.

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MIPS is a registered trademark and MIPS64, MIPS-3D and MIPS64 20K are trademarks of MIPS Technologies, Inc. All other trademarks are the property of their respective companies. All press materials are available on the World Wide Web via: http://www.mips.com.