Google would officially support for ports of Android to the MIPS architecture. This alternative architecture will get more and more acclaim due to its much lower licensing costs for the mostly Chinese manufacturers.
With that decision, the company is able to meet the, especially Chinese, manufacturers, who are increasingly the MIPS architecture instead of ARM, because the licenses of the former are much cheaper.
MIPS Technologies, the developer of the micro-architecture, spoke at the end of last year still wish that Google officially support it would offer for its architecture. MIPS Technologies ‘ port all the Linux-kernels and makes them available on his website, which manufacturers then through a by the company itself developed method Android for the MIPS micro-architecture can build.
The MIPS architecture is a 64-bit, risc processor architecture, which is mainly used in embedded systems, routers, and also used in the PlayStation 2 and PSP game consoles. For Google it would be little effort to a third architecture to support, because, according to EE Times 85 percent of all Android apps via the Dalvik Virtual Machine instead of natively on the processor used. Most apps do not need to be ported. Only the future versions of the Android os and the Dalvik VM will have a port to the MIPS architecture.