Imagination Technologies has long been known for its mobile graphics processors—designs from Imagination have shown up in everything from Apple's iPhones and iPads to Sony's PlayStation Vita. Today, the company announced that it would be extending its CPU lineup with a new architecture called "Warrior" that is aimed at both "compute-intense enterprise environments" and "energy efficient mobile platforms" like smartphones and tablets.

Unlike most phone and tablet chips we see these days, the Warrior architecture isn't based on the prevalent ARM instruction set but on Imagination's own low-power MIPS architecture. This follows Imagination's acquisition of MIPS Technologies Inc. at the end of last year. Warrior CPUs will be available in both 32-bit and 64-bit variants, will support hardware virtualization, and will include "MIPS hardware multi-threading technology" among other features.

Imagination's Warrior CPUs will be fighting an uphill battle against ARM, whose architectures and instruction sets are in the vast majority of tablets and smartphones today. They'll also have to contend with Intel, a much larger company that is trying very hard to get its Core- and Atom-branded CPUs into Windows 8 and Android tablets. However, the company's prowess in graphics shouldn't be ignored here, especially since Forbes reports that Imagination will be "open" to offering GPU licensees steep discounts on its MIPS CPUs.

The Warrior CPU will be available later this year. Imagination has also announced a handful of new products in its Aptiv family of processors, which commonly show up in routers, Blu-ray players, and other embedded devices.