Chinese RF chip vendor Nationz licenses MIPS32 M4K cores

Chinese RF chip vendor Nationz licenses MIPS32 M4K cores

SAN FRANCISCO—China-based security and RF chip vendor Nationz Technologies Inc. has licensed MIPS Technologies Inc.'s MIPS32 M4K processor cores for use in its 2.4G RFID-SIM/SD mobile payment products, widely used in mobile phones, MIPS said Thursday (June 14).

According to MIPS (Sunnyvale, Calif.), Nationz's RFID-SIM/SD cards have been adopted by major telecom providers in China, with more than 1 million MIPS-based devices shipped to-date. Nationz is already designing its next MIPS-based chip for mobile payment applications, including range controlled communications, a multi-range controlled communication technology which goes beyond near-field communications, according to MIPS.

The mobile payment market—which includes mobile shopping, money transfers and NFC transactions—is expected to be worth $670 billion by 2015, up from $240 billion in 2011, according to a report from Juniper Research. A separate World Payments Report 2011, released by The Royal Bank of Scotland and other partners, predicts mobile payments will overtake traditional plastic card transactions by 2021.

"By leveraging the cost advantages, high performance and low-power capabilities of the MIPS cores, we are excited to extend the rapid growth of our mobile payment solutions, which have been a great success in China, to the international market," said Zhu Shan, director of mobile payment and RCC technology products at Nationz, in a statement.


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