CAMBRIDGE, U.K., Feb. 4, 2004 (PRIMEZONE) -- The Mobile Industry Processor Interface (MIPI) Alliance, the industry initiative established to define and promote open standards for interfaces to mobile application processors, announced today that the four founding members have been joined by 35 new members, including the addition of Intel and Motorola to the board of directors.
"Our growing membership base sends a clear signal that the mobile industry supports the objectives of our organization," said Tom Vial, Chairman of the Board, MIPI Alliance, Inc. "The diversity of the companies involved leaves little doubt that the MIPI Alliance is an open organization, and the specifications we produce will be widely adopted."
"Developing open interface specifications for application processors and peripherals in mobile terminals will have a beneficial impact on the mobile industry as they become more widely adopted" said Alan Brown, Principal Analyst of Gartner, "The addition of these new companies to the MIPI Alliance clearly increases the importance of the Alliance and its influence in setting standards in this area."
Through expansion of membership to other important players in the market, the MIPI Alliance will bring the benefits of open standards to more of the mobile marketplace. MIPI Standards will drive consistency in application processor interfaces, promoting reuse and compatibility in mobile devices while accelerating the delivery of these devices to users.
"With over 70 years of experience in the wireless communications industry, we see the MIPI Alliance as an important milestone in the evolution from custom to standards-based interfaces," said Duane Rabe, Vice President, Motorola Personal Communications Sector. "As a member of the MIPI Alliance, Motorola looks forward to helping drive initiatives for creating ever more compelling wireless products and services."
"The growth of the mobile phone industry will largely depend on its ability to broadly deploy leading-edge, interoperable, standard building blocks -- something that has yet to happen," said Gadi Singer, Intel Vice President and General Manager of the Cellular Handheld Group. "With the addition of the new members, the MIPI Alliance is emerging as a key advocate for industry-wide openness, and Intel plans to take an active role to help lead the development of open, standard platform interfaces for mobile phones."
In addition to wireless pioneer Motorola and open-standards advocate Intel, the MIPI Alliance now boasts participation from virtually every mobile market segment, including major handset OEMs, peripheral device manufacturers, application processor vendors, memory suppliers, software developers and intellectual property vendors. New members include Agilent Technologies, ATI Technologies, Atsana, Austriamicrosystems, Cambridge Silicon Radio, Dice, Emblaze Semiconductor, Ericsson Mobile Platform, FASL LLC, Icera Semiconductor, Imagination Technologies, IMEC, Infineon Technologies, Marvell International, Mentor Graphics, M-Systems, National Semiconductor, NeoMagic, Nvidia, Omnivision, Philips Electronics, Renasas Technologies, Samsung Electronics, Seiko Epson, Sendo, SiemensAG, Sony Ericsson Mobile, Symbian, Synaptics, Toshiba, Transchip Israel Research, TTPCom, and Vimicro. These new members joined the founding members ARM, Nokia, ST Microelectronics, and Texas Instruments.
All MIPI members may participate in a launch meeting March 23-25 in Sophia Antipolis, France, which will include orientation sessions, board meetings, and initial working group meetings. More details about the meeting will be announced soon. MIPI working group members will begin collaborating immediately to develop new interface specifications for application processors and peripherals in mobile terminals, including camera, display, baseband modem and others.
Joining the MIPI Alliance
The MIPI Alliance is actively recruiting members to participate in the building of next generation standards. The MIPI Alliance is structured to provide multiple levels of membership, in which benefits are proportional to contributions. Basic levels of membership enable use of specifications, while other levels of membership enable participation in working groups to define specifications. More information including membership details on the MIPI Alliance is on http://www.mipi.org.
About The MIPI Alliance
The Mobile Industry Processor Interface (MIPI) Alliance is a collaboration of mobile industry leaders with the objective to define and promote open standards for interfaces to mobile application processors. Through these open standards, the MIPI Alliance intends to speed deployment of new services to mobile users by establishing specifications for standard hardware and software interfaces to mobile application processors and encouraging the adoption of those standards throughout the industry value chain. The MIPI Alliance is intended to complement existing standards bodies with a focus on microprocessors, peripherals and software interfaces.
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Quote Sheet
Quote from ARM:
"The addition of Intel and Motorola to the board of the MIPI Alliance, plus the addition of 34 companies, shows strong global mobile industry support for the aspiration of reducing fragmentation and promoting faster and broader adoption of mobile devices," said Mike Inglis, executive vice president of marketing at ARM. "ARM is pleased to see a number of its global Partners have joined the Alliance and would like to see this increase further over time."
Quote from IMEC:
"IMEC (www.imec.be) has built a strong reputation in a broad spectrum of activities related to mobile processor interfaces ranging from embedded platforms and power-efficient architectures, low-power design techniques, communication architectures, RTOS and resource management, to SW programming models and application mapping and optimization tools," said Dr. Rudy Lauwereins, vice president Design Technology for Integrated Information and Communication Systems at IMEC. "By actively participating in the MIPI Alliance, IMEC will get early insight in SW and HW mobile interface specifications. This will guarantee that our research is compliant with standards and aligned with major industrial players in this field and ensures that our breakthrough research solutions are adopted in future mobile devices."
Quote from Infineon Technologies:
"Infineon Technologies is pleased to contribute as a member of the MIPI Alliance," said Dominik Bilo, chief marketing officer of the Infineon Technologies Secure Mobile Solutions Business Group. "Our proven knowledge of secure mobile platforms and strong commitment to open standards will help to dramatically accelerate system-on-chip developments for future wireless multimedia solutions based on standardized application interfaces."
Quote from M-Systems:
"The MIPI Alliance will help companies like us to quickly deliver products ideally suited to the special requirements of the industry. We are thrilled to work with other leading companies within the alliance to accelerate the development and adoption of higher density, lower cost mass memory technologies, which in turn will accelerate the development of multimedia-rich mobile devices, improve time to market and shape the future of the industry," said Dov Moran, president and CEO of M-Systems (Nasdaq: FLSH).
Quote from National Semiconductor:
"National is very pleased to join the MIPI Alliance and participate in further standardization efforts for the mobile phone industry," said Peter Henry, vice president of portable power systems, National Semiconductor. "National brings a rich heritage of interface and analog technology in support of open standards for mobile devices."
Quote from Nokia:
"Nokia welcomes all new members to enforce the open-based work of the MIPI Alliance,"said Petri Haavisto, vice president, Technology Platforms, Nokia. "With the new board members and the wealth of other member companies it is evident, that the MIPI Alliance will be enable the whole mobile communication industry to move forward faster and more cost effectively."
Quote from NVIDIA:
"The growth of the mobile phone industry will largely depend on its ability to broadly deliver standard, interoperable interfaces," said Phil Carmack, vice president and general manager, Handheld Products at NVIDIA. "The MIPI Alliance has emerged as a key advocate for industry-wide openness, and NVIDIA plans to take an active role to help lead the development of open, standard platform interfaces for mobile phones. The combination of standardized interfaces and NVIDIA's mobile multimedia technology will yield tremendous benefits to all the members of the mobile ecosystem."
Quote from Philips:
"Philips is a strong proponent of industry standards and is active on a number of standardization committees," says Mario Rivas, executive vice president, communications businesses, Philips Semiconductors. "Standardization will accelerate the rate of industry innovation in a cost-effective way, thus benefiting component vendors, handset makers, and operators as well as consumers. Philips actively supports the MIPI Alliance as the platform of choice, as it contributes to our vision of the Connected Consumer."
Quote from STMicroelectronics
"Through their involvement in the MIPI Alliance, these new members acknowledge the need for open standards and specifications, stated Guy Lauvergeon, general manager of the Multimedia Platform Unit of STMicroelectronics N.V. "Furthermore, their respective product categories represent critical points on the mobile industry value chain. The addition of these key companies to the founding members further enforces the foundation upon which a successful industry organization is built."
Quote from TI
"Texas Instruments recognized the need for open standards in mobile application processor interfaces, and we actively sought other companies who shared this perspective," said Alain Mutricy, TI vice president, OMAP platform general manager. "The recent increase in membership demonstrates that key companies in the mobile industry agree on the objectives of the MIPI Alliance. We look forward to collaborating with the new members as the MIPI Alliance develops specifications which will help grow the market for application-rich mobile terminals."
This information is provided by RNS
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