MIPS Unveils RISC-V Platform to Deliver Precise Motor Control Inside Humanoid Robot Joints

The processor company owned by GlobalFoundries MIPS has introduced new advances to its Actus platform. Actus is an open RISC-V design intended to handle motor control, local AI and networking inside the joints of humanoid robots. The company announced the update on Nov. 9 at electronica 2026 in Munich, where Actus is on display at Hall C3, Booth 540, through Nov. 13. 

MIPS is targeting what it calls the last mile of a humanoid arm. The arm is the section from the elbow to the fingertips, where every joint must move smoothly while fitting within tight limits on space, weight, power and heat. Actus tries to meet those limits by placing motor control, edge inference and communications on a single chip instead of spreading them across several boards. 

For motor control, Actus uses two Atlas M8500 real-time RISC-V processors that rely on hardware multithreading to avoid the delay of switching tasks whenever the motor needs attention. The platform also includes dedicated hardware for the trigonometric calculations behind field-oriented motor control, which MIPS says runs more than 16 times faster than standard software libraries. 

Intelligence sits on the same chip, since a 512-bit vector processor allows each joint to run sensor fusion and predictive maintenance models locally. Hence, it can spot signs of wear without sending raw data to a central computer. 

Networking relies on gigabit Ethernet with three-port Time-Sensitive Networking to deliver data on a fixed schedule so that position and torque information from each joint reaches the central controller predictably. A hardware security module with post-quantum cryptography protects every node, and the design supports functional safety requirements for production robots. 

The platform is built on GlobalFoundries' FDX FD-SOI technology with on-chip MRAM, which MIPS says keeps power low while reducing board area and system cost. 

MIPS CEO Sameer Wasson said robots will earn trust through the way they move autonomously and safely. Edward Wilford, senior research director at Omdia, said actuators and the networks connecting them pose some of the toughest engineering problems for robot makers. He also said that a single chip combining real-time motor control with deterministic networking addresses a clear gap in the market. 

Actus is a reference platform, and the announcement does not name customers, pricing or production timelines. The performance figures also come from MIPS, thus how the platform performs inside a working humanoid robot has yet to be shown.