MIPS Technologies Introduces The MIPS Consumer Audio Platform, The Industry's Most Comprehensive Audio Solution

Customers Now Integrating Optimized Audio Codecs Developed with Dolby, Fraunhofer, Microsoft, Sonic Solutions and SRS Labs

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif., June 14, 2004 - Whether in mobile MP3 players, DVD-Recordable devices or plasma TVs, servicing the expanding market for consumer audio playback devices just got easier thanks to MIPS Technologies, Inc. (Nasdaq: MIPS). Working with leaders in the consumer electronics software industry - such as Dolby Laboratories, Fraunhofer, Microsoft, Sonic Solutions and SRS Labs - MIPS Technologies today introduced the MIPS™ Consumer Audio Platform, a common foundation that enables customers to implement the world's most popular audio codecs (coders and decoders) on MIPS-Based™ system-on-chips (SOCs) targeting high-growth embedded markets.

Industry's Most Comprehensive Audio Solution
In use by a range of silicon companies, the MIPS Consumer Audio Platform enhances the formidable MIPS® ecosystem, which is comprised of over one hundred million dollars of software, tools and peripheral IP already ported to the industry-standard MIPS architecture. Now licensees can implement the audio algorithms using a dedicated MIPS-Based co-processor or leverage the inherent processor headroom in many consumer applications to run audio codecs in addition to functions typically handled by "host" processors. These approaches will cut overall system costs, reduce or eliminate royalty payments to DSP vendors and speed MIPS-Based designs to market by stripping months from the SOC development cycle.

All audio algorithms have been optimized for the MIPS32® instruction set and offer must-have audio technology including Dolby® Digital, MPEG audio, Microsoft's Windows Media Audio (WMA), and SRS TruSurround XT® technology from SRS Labs.

"The MIPS Consumer Audio Platform is another way we are giving customers the flexibility to optimize system configurations using a single industry-standard processor architecture," said Russ Bell, vice president of marketing at MIPS Technologies. "Using our optimized platform, licensees can develop and maintain a single audio subsystem to target multiple consumer products, ranging from mobile audio players to high-end consumer devices."

The following codecs are ready for licensing from Fraunhofer, Microsoft, MIPS Technologies or Sonic Solutions. Additional codecs are being developed and will be announced as they become available.

Audio Vendor	Algorithms
Fraunhofer	MP3 (MPEG-1 and MPEG-2 Layer-3) decoder MP3 (MPEG-1 and MPEG-2 Layer-3) encoder AAC (MPEG-2 and MPEG-4 Low Complexity AAC) decoder. Multichannel on request AAC (MPEG-2 and MPEG-4 Low Complexity AAC) encoder. Multichannel on request MPEG-4 AAC Low Delay for bidirectional communication, decoder MPEG-4 AAC Low Delay for bidirectional communication, encoder
Microsoft	Windows Media Audio
MIPS Technologies	Dolby Digital decoder MPEG-1 audio layers 1 & 2 decoder MPEG-2 audio layers 1 & 2 decoder with multichannel (5.1) and backwards compatible Dolby Pro Logic® II decoder SRS TruSurround XT
Sonic Solutions	Dolby Digital encoder

Industry Leaders Participating in the MIPS Consumer Audio Platform

Dolby Laboratories
"Consumers all over the world are demanding a high quality audio experience in a wide range of applications. Working with industry leaders such as MIPS Technologies, Dolby is helping to ensure its industry-leading audio technologies continue to proliferate across multiple consumer electronic devices. This will expand the market opportunities of our partners and help consumers get broad access to the highest quality audio experience that Dolby technologies deliver," said Craig Eggers, director, Consumer Electronics Marketing at Dolby Laboratories.

Fraunhofer ISS
"With our audio codecs integrated in the MIPS Consumer Audio Platform, end users will have easy access to Fraunhofer technology strengthening the open MPEG standards. To date we have seen strong demand for the optimized technology from customers and look forward to working with MIPS Technologies to grow our mutual market opportunities," added Harald Popp, head of the Multimedia Realtime Systems department at Fraunhofer IIS.

Sonic Solutions
"As the leader in DVD/CD creation, Sonic engineered the Dolby Digital AC-3 Encoder for the MIPS platform because we saw the significant potential for MIPS processor cores to make software audio encoding practical in a wide variety of consumer electronics devices", said Jim Taylor, general manager of Sonic's Advanced Technology Group. "Our Dolby Digital AC-3 encoder is optimized for the MIPS platform and can be easily integrated into any system to provide high quality, DVD-ready audio."

SRS Labs, Inc.
"Through our partnership with MIPS Technologies, we are offering designers a seamless method for integrating our technology into their SOCs," said Lupita Ho, director of strategic IC partner development at SRS Labs. "The Consumer Audio Platform provides flexibility and a faster time to market, thereby allowing us to quickly reach a significant majority of audio device manufacturers worldwide. Our close partnership with MIPS Technologies continues to help establish TruSurround XT as a standard in the consumer marketplace and we are pleased that they have chosen it as a must-have technology in their platform."

Surpassing the Performance and Power Challenges for Consumer Applications
Audio processing performance is increasing as much as 300% as chipsets are required to process multiple audio streams simultaneously. Furthermore, many devices are operating on low power budgets to lengthen the audio experience.

As the performance leader in the embedded industry, with speeds up to 550 MHz for a 24Kc™ core, the MIPS Consumer Audio Platform allows SOC designers the flexibility to run audio algorithms on the host CPU or in a dedicated MIPS RISC co-processor. This eliminates the need to partition audio streams and support dual RISC/DSP software tool chains and processor architectures. By leveraging the synthesizability of a MIPS Technologies core, licensees can configure their SOCs for a range of options such as power, area or performance depending upon market requirements. And because the MIPS architecture is an industry-standard, licensees can unify hardware specifications to take advantage of the broad range of software, tools and peripheral IP already ported to the architecture.

Availability
The MIPS Consumer Audio Platform is available today for licensing by semiconductor companies worldwide. Please contact www.mips.com or call +1 650 567 5000 for more information.

About MIPS Technologies
MIPS Technologies, Inc. is a leading provider of industry-standard processor architectures and cores for digital consumer and business applications. The company drives the broadest architectural alliance that is delivering 32- and 64-bit embedded RISC solutions. The company licenses its intellectual property to semiconductor companies, ASIC developers and system OEMs. MIPS Technologies and its licensees offer the widest range of robust, scalable processors in standard, custom, semi-custom and application-specific products. The company is based in Mountain View, Calif., and can be reached at +1 (650) 567-5000 or www.mips.com.

###

MIPS and MIPS32 are registered trademarks in the United States and other countries, and MIPS-Based and 24Kc are trademarks of MIPS Technologies, Inc. All other trademarks referred to herein are the property of their respective owners.

MIPS Technologies Introduces The MIPS Consumer Audio Platform, The Industry's Most Comprehensive Audio Solution

Contact MIPS Technologies, Inc.