MIPS Technologies announces Arriba for Android porting kit

SUNNYVALE, USA: MIPS Technologies Inc., a leading provider of industry-standard processor architectures and cores for home entertainment, communications, networking and portable multimedia markets, today announced availability of the Arriba for Android Porting Kit (APK) for its industry-standard MIPS architecture.

Developed through its partnership with Viosoft Corp., the Arriba APK provides a unique and powerful set of tools to enable deployment of the revolutionary Android platform to the vast MIPS development community across the world. With the Arriba APK, OEMs can quickly tailor and optimize Android for their specific platforms.

Initially finding success in mobile phones, Android is now moving beyond that to become a standard way to bring the full internet experience to DTVs, set-top boxes, MIDs, digital picture frames, VoIP solutions and other embedded devices.

With Android on MIPS—the number one processor architecture for the digital home—developers can easily take advantage of a feature-rich, open source, internet-connected platform that lowers software costs and reduces time-to-market.

The Arriba APK is a fully-integrated set of tools that enables and speeds porting of Android to MIPS-Based platforms. From hardware bring-up through final product deployment, it provides unprecedented visibility into code development that extends the capabilities provided by the Android SDK.

The Arriba APK leverages Viosoft’s time-tested Arriba Linux debug and profiling technologies along with MIPS Technologies’ powerful System Navigator EJTAG probe technology to provide complete source-aware run and debug control of the platform under development. It features a comprehensive set of plug-in modules that offer valuable insight into the Android software stack, including the Android System Level Event Analyzer.

“We are pleased to join with our long-time partner Viosoft to enable developers to leverage Android for their next-generation SoCs,” said Art Swift, vice president of marketing, MIPS Technologies.

“As we continue to drive Android into consumer electronics applications—joining with our partners and licensees to create reference platforms and optimizations, we are confident that the combination of Android and the increasingly vast number of innovative MIPS-Based SoCs in the market will enable the next generation of connected multimedia devices for the digital home and beyond.”

“The Arriba APK is the most comprehensive environment available today for development efforts targeting Android,” said Art Lee, vice president of business development, Viosoft.

“It is also the industry’s first fully integrated, multi-language embedded development environment providing complete support for source aware Java, C/C++ and Linux development, debug and deployment. The Arriba APK provides complete visibility throughout all layers of the Android stack, starting with the embedded Linux kernel and device drivers through Android libraries and application framework, the Dalvik VM and everything in between.

"Developers can set breakpoints in any task, analyze all program variables and view call stacks, register contents and many other aspects of the Android platform not immediately visible with any other tool. With this level of visibility and control, the Arriba APK can dramatically reduce development time, risk and costs.”

Availability
The Arriba APK is available now from MIPS Technologies. The Arriba APK includes the first year of development tool maintenance, along with 60 days of support from Viosoft.

Viosoft’s Arriba tools support single and multi-core platforms, providing support for any MIPS-based Android target. All MIPS processors are supported, from MIPS architecture licensees’ designs to MIPS’ complete offering of licensable cores including the 1004K® coherent processing system.