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MIPS Technologies recently released a MIPS®-optimized version of the ActionScript™ virtual machine (VM) that is used in Web-connected technologies including Adobe® Flash® Player. The ActionScript VM is accessible via the Tamarin open source project, and is a key component in optimizing Adobe Flash Player for running on the MIPS architecture.
MIPS' optimizations accelerate ActionScript 3 performance on a validation suite of benchmarks by nearly 2.5x relative to the non-optimized VM. MIPS' optimized VM executes twice as fast on a MIPS32® 74K® CPU core relative to the optimized VM for ARM running on an ARM Cortex A8 CPU 1.
"We are pleased that MIPS Technologies is optimizing key elements used in our Flash Player technology for its architecture. We look forward to incorporating these optimizations in future Flash Player releases in support of the many SoC vendors using the MIPS architecture," said Mahesh Balakrishnan, Director, Product Management and Strategy, Platform Business at Adobe.
Tamarin Open Source: The First Step
According to Art Swift, Vice President of Marketing at MIPS, "MIPS is committed to optimizing key elements of Adobe Flash Player, starting with the Tamarin project, an open source version of the ActionScript virtual machine used in Flash Player."
Tamarin is a JavaScript engine written in C++. It currently implements Adobe ActionScript 3 and is embedded within the Adobe Flash Player versions 9 and later. Tamarin's jit-compiler, NanoJIT, is also used in TraceMonkey ergo SpiderMonkey, which is Mozilla's JavaScript engine in Firefox.
Flash for the Digital Home
"Adobe Flash technology is a key component of the Internet-connected multimedia experience in the digital home," says Swift. Adobe Flash technology enables delivery of high-definition content and rich applications to IIPTVs and TV-connected consumer electronic devices in the digital living room. The Adobe Flash Platform for the Digital Home will build on these capabilities with support for custom filters and effects, native 3D transformation and animation, advanced audio processing, and graphics hardware acceleration.
Adobe Flash technology already runs on a number of leading SoC platforms based on the MIPS architecture. The world's first PMPs to run Flash were also MIPS-Based™ devices.
Adobe Flash optimizations are a key part of MIPS' strategy to deliver full solutions to ease its customers' design process. Building around its leading processor core technology, MIPS continues to optimize software stacks for Flash, Android, Linux, Java™ and other key technologies that will enable the next generation of connected devices.
1 As measured by MIPS on publicly-available boards and software for ARM Cortex A8-based silicon
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