MIPS Technologies, a leading provider of industry-standard processor architectures and cores for digital home, networking and mobile applications, has announced that Android 4.0.3, the latest release of the Android 4.0 platform also known as "Ice Cream Sandwich," is now available for the MIPS architecture.
The MIPS port was completed within 24 hours of being released by Google into open source on December 16. The Android 4.0.3 code for MIPS is available for download at http://developer.mips.com/.
In January, an Android 4.0.3 over-the air (OTA) update will be available at http://www.ainovo.com/ for existing MIPS-Based Android tablets from Ainol Electronics and will also be pre-installed on tablets that begin shipping as of that time.
In addition, the open source release of Android 4.0.3 from Google contains support for MIPS' LLVM technology. Over the past year, MIPS Technologies developed this technology based on its belief that the LLVM open source compiler infrastructure will continue to gain acceptance across the industry as a basis for application portability. Already, LLVM is an underpinning for key Android facilities such as the Renderscript applications programming interface (API). MIPS contributed its technology to the official Android source tree because of its strategic importance for application developers.
"Following our recent announcement with our customer Ingenic about availability of the world's first Android 4.0 tablet, we are pleased to enable all MIPS licensees to bring the latest release of Android to their consumer devices such as DTVs, set-top boxes, automotive infotainment and service gateways, as well as MIPS-Based smartphones and tablets," said Gideon Intrater, vice president of marketing, MIPS Technologies.