MIPS Technologies, a processor core IP company, is for the first time dipping its toe in the mobile handset chip market heavily dominated by rival ARM. MIPS appears to have pulled it off through Sprint Nextel, which will launch its first WiMAX (4G) phone next week at the CTIA wireless show, according to an analyst.

MIPS has not responded to calls seeking comment on the deal.

Gary Mobley, senior analyst at Benchmark Co., wrote in a research note Thursday (March 18), "It is widely touted that Sprint Nextel's first WiMax (4G) phone will be supplied by HTC. We can also surmise that the 4G WiMax chip will be supplied by Beceem, a MIPS licensee and royalty payer."

Beceem is a leading supplier of 4G-WiMAX chip solutions.

Mobley noted that the launch of Sprint Nextel's first 4G phone should provide "a material financial boost for MIPS, and nearly as important, raise the profile of MIPS within the wireless market segment." He added, "While ARM Holdings should continue to dominate the mobile phone chip market, a few success stories such as Beceem can serve to move the needle for MIPS."

In a recent interview with EE Times, Art Swift, vice president of marketing at MIPS, noted that MIPS is potentially at an opportune moment to change the game, "by leveraging MIPS' proven WiFi expertise directly for 4G." He explained that 4G protocols are more similar to WiFi than 3G.

MIPS, in recent months, has been more vocal about the company's ambition to extend its processor IPs to both baseband and multimedia co-processor chips inside future mobile handsets. Last month, MIPS said that key software stacks and IPs necessary for 3.5G and 4G phones are becoming widely available for those in MIPS' ecosystem.

Mobley wrote: "While most of the cellular baseband and application processor vendors utilize ARM processor IP, there are a few avenues through which MIPS is penetrating the cellular market place. If MIPS captures a small sliver of the 1.3 billion-per-year cell phone market, the company's top and bottom line can benefit substantially."

The analyst community is also pulling for MIPS' new CEO Sandeep Vij.

Mobley, for example, listed "the appointment of a well-respected CEO" as one of long-term catalysts for MIPS to help its transition.

Mobley noted that near-term catalysts include "an upward bias to estimates given the recovery in chip industry, and increasing investor outreach with the new CEO at the helm."

It's believed that the company's licensing pipeline is the strongest it has been in several quarters, a function of increasing chip development activity in the improving semiconductor cycle.