prpl Foundation Announces 'Quick EMUlator' (QEMU) Support for Imagination's New 64-bit MIPS Processors

Advanced access to key tool enables developers and systems integrators to accelerate application development for next-generation MIPS r6 based SoCs

LOS ALTOS, CA, Sept. 3, 2014 – prpl Foundation, the recently established open-source non-profit foundation focused on enabling next-generation datacenter-to-device portable software and virtualized architectures, today announced QEMU (CPU emulation and virtualization) support for the MIPS Release 6 (r6) architecture from Imagination Technologies.

The 32/64-bit MIPS r6 architecture represents the continuing evolution of the MIPS instruction set. Targeting next-generation applications, MIPS r6 features new instructions aimed to enhance performance on JITs, JavaScript, browsers, PIC (position independent code) for Android, and today’s larger workloads.

Developers can use QEMU to speed development around the new 64-bit MIPS Warrior I6400 CPU which is based on MIPS r6. With QEMU, developers can perform rapid prototyping of code and quickly take advantage of the new CPU’s powerful features for embedded, mobile, digital consumer, advanced communications, networking and storage applications.

“Development tools are critical to any new architecture and having tools available from the prpl Foundation demonstrates commitment by its members to the new MIPS Warrior Class CPUs, including the I6400,” said Jim McGregor, Principal Analyst at TIRIAS Research. “Having an open-source emulator and virtualizer like QEMU will enable applications on a wide range of platforms, such as Android.”

The codebase is available at http://github.com/prplfoundation and documentation at http://wiki.prplfoundation.org. prpl will also be submitting upstream and working with the community for imminent inclusion in the QEMU mainline.

“prpl Foundation's membership is composed of major companies that recognize the importance of portable software and virtualized architectures,” said Amit Rohatgi, president, prpl Foundation. “prpl is the place to go to get the earliest access to the latest tools, environments, platforms, distributions and other technologies for the MIPS community. We are pleased to provide QEMU support for Imagination’s new MIPS I6400 CPU, which features hardware virtualization for increased reliability in multi-tenant application environments.”

“Imagination is passionate about open source, and prpl is a demonstration of just how serious we are about building a vibrant open source community around the MIPS architecture,” said Ian Oliver, Imagination’s senior director of developer tools and a prpl board member. “QEMU is one of the areas where we are investing heavily to ensure broad support for new MIPS architectures and the latest Warrior cores. We are enjoying working with other members of the prpl foundation to build on the momentum in the MIPS ecosystem.”

For more information on the new MIPS Warrior I6400 CPU and the MIPS r6 architecture, visit www.imgtec.com.

About QEMU

Quick EMUlator (QEMU) is a free and open-source hosted hypervisor that performs hardware virtualization. It is a hosted virtual machine monitor which emulates central processing unit (CPUs) through dynamic binary translation and provides a set of device models, enabling it to run a variety of unmodified guest operating systems. QEMU can also be used purely for CPU emulation for user-level processes, allowing applications compiled for one architecture to be run on another. More at: http://wiki.qemu.org/Main_Page and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QEMU.

About prpl foundation

prpl (pronounced “Purple”) is an open-source, community-driven, collaborative, non-profit foundation targeting and supporting the MIPS architecture—and open to others—with a focus on enabling next-generation datacenter-to-device portable software and virtualized architectures. prpl represents leaders in the technology industry investing in innovation in efficiency, portability and compatibility for the good of a broad community of developers, businesses and consumers. Initial domains targeted by prpl include datacenter, networking & storage, connected consumer and embedded/IoT. See: www.prplfoundation.org.