TI to use MontaVista Linux for digital video chips

Iria · Dec 6, 2005, 10:31 PM

Phone and small consumer electronic manufacturers are always looking for a way to cut costs and reduce development time. Traditionally, the Symbian or Windows Mobile operating system was used to power these small devices, but now TI has teamed up with MontaVista Linux to provide a third alternative. The two companies will launch the DaVinci development platform and Linux programmers will be able to use standard Linux APIs to program TI's digital video chips.

The chips carrying the model numbers TMS320DM6443/6446 are single chip solutions that combine processor, digital-video encoding/decoding and network interfaces into one package. The processors may not make sense in the desktop world, but embedded platforms or mobile devices can use such a setup to reduce power consumption and cost. According to Oren Teich, Director of Product Management at MontaVista Linux, the challenge is getting an operating system to work on such chips and then making software development as easy as possible.

MontaVista Linux is somewhat different than Red Hat or Suse Linux as it cannot be installed on a desktop computer. The distribution is focused exclusively on embedded products such as cellular phones or consumer electronic devices. This focus allows the distribution to fit into the small memory footprint of such devices. Teich told us that devices such as cellular phones generally have 32 or 16 MByte of RAM and ROM. "If you have a 64 MByte (RAM) by 64 MegaByte (ROM) device, you have a pretty honking big machine. We can fit the distro into 32 MBytes and are pushing to get that to 16," said Teich.
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Read More / Source: TG Daily

Dec 6, 2005, 10:31 PM	#1
Iria DriverHeaven Extreme Member Join Date: Apr 2004 Posts: 7,275 Rep Power: 89	TI to use MontaVista Linux for digital video chips Phone and small consumer electronic manufacturers are always looking for a way to cut costs and reduce development time. Traditionally, the Symbian or Windows Mobile operating system was used to power these small devices, but now TI has teamed up with MontaVista Linux to provide a third alternative. The two companies will launch the DaVinci development platform and Linux programmers will be able to use standard Linux APIs to program TI's digital video chips. The chips carrying the model numbers TMS320DM6443/6446 are single chip solutions that combine processor, digital-video encoding/decoding and network interfaces into one package. The processors may not make sense in the desktop world, but embedded platforms or mobile devices can use such a setup to reduce power consumption and cost. According to Oren Teich, Director of Product Management at MontaVista Linux, the challenge is getting an operating system to work on such chips and then making software development as easy as possible. MontaVista Linux is somewhat different than Red Hat or Suse Linux as it cannot be installed on a desktop computer. The distribution is focused exclusively on embedded products such as cellular phones or consumer electronic devices. This focus allows the distribution to fit into the small memory footprint of such devices. Teich told us that devices such as cellular phones generally have 32 or 16 MByte of RAM and ROM. "If you have a 64 MByte (RAM) by 64 MegaByte (ROM) device, you have a pretty honking big machine. We can fit the distro into 32 MBytes and are pushing to get that to 16," said Teich. ____________ Read More / Source: TG Daily