Freescale and Virtio Bring Virtual Prototyping to Cellular Platforms; Development Time Accelerated Through Virtual Platforms Software
AUSTIN, Texas--June 15, 2005--Freescale Semiconductor and Virtio Corporation, the creator of Virtual Platforms for embedded software development, have partnered to reduce handset development time by providing handset manufacturers with the ability to develop and test their software without waiting for hardware availability. This dramatically reduces OEMs' time to market and revenue.Virtual Platforms provide developers with added debug capabilities by enabling visibility and control of software/hardware interactions, which are more difficult to observe on the physical hardware platform.
"The typical development cycle for a handset is 12-24 months. With virtual platforms from Virtio allowing parallel software development, you can potentially reduce that development cycle by 6-9 months," said Berardino Baratta, director of wireless strategy office for Freescale. "We have seen a huge reduction in our development time by being able to test and validate software before delivering first silicon samples.. We then pass the benefit on to our customers with even more flexible and scalable roadmaps and reduced time to market for their handsets."
The VPMX31 Virtual Platform models the application development system for the recently announced i.MX31 multimedia applications processor and is immediately available. The i.MX31 is a 32-bit applications processor for cell phones and other handheld wireless entertainment devices. It boosts multimedia, video and graphics performance along with providing outstanding battery power management.
The virtual digital baseband for the MXC and i.300 platforms is used internally by Freescale and is expected to be available in Q3 2005. MXC is Freescale's mobile extreme convergence platform that includes a modem, applications processor and RF on a reconfigurable chip package the size of a postage stamp. It allows access to WiFi, GPS and Bluetooth(TM) technology, targeting wireless Internet, multimedia and gaming applications. The i.300-30 platform targets 3G cell phone design and includes both a processor and DSP along with an integrated video processor. The chipset also includes tri-band WCDMA and quad-band GSM RF functions.
Partnership Ensures Highest Quality
Shay Ben-Chorin, president and chief executive officer for Virtio said, "Working with Freescale gives Virtio an inside look at products under development, ensuring the highest accuracy in our models. We work with them to jump-start early software development and testing, a critical issue to the industry."
Virtio is demonstrating the Virtual Platforms for Freescale's processors at the Freescale Technology Forum (FTF) June 20-23, 2005, booth #123. At FTF, Virtio will be distributing evaluation versions of the VPMX31 Virtual Platform modeling Freescale's i.MX31 multimedia applications processor to OEMs and ISVs.
About Freescale Semiconductor
Freescale Semiconductor, Inc. is a global leader in the design and manufacture of embedded semiconductors for the automotive, consumer, industrial, networking and wireless markets. Freescale became a publicly traded company in July 2004 after more than 50 years as part of Motorola, Inc. The company is based in Austin, Texas, and has design, research and development, manufacturing or sales operations in more than 30 countries. Freescale, a member of the S&P 500(R), is one of the world's largest semiconductor companies with 2004 sales of $5.7 billion (US). www.freescale.com
About Virtio
Virtio powers dramatic gains in software development by delivering early access to fast, full-function software emulation of embedded devices. Virtio is based in Campbell, California, in the U.S.A with development centers in Campbell, the Alba Centre, Livingston, Scotland and Moscow, Russia. Additional information about Virtio is available at www.virtio.com.
Freescale Technology Forum
Learn more about this inaugural forum, June 20-23, 2005 in Orlando, Florida, featuring visionary keynote speeches, in-depth technical presentations and technology demonstrations from Freescale and leading hardware, software and tools providers. www.freescale.com/ftf
Freescale(TM) and the Freescale logo are trademarks of Freescale Semiconductor, Inc. All other product or service names are the property of their respective owners. (C) Freescale Semiconductor, Inc. 2005.
Virtio is a trademark of Virtio Corp. All other brand or product names may be trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective companies and should be treated as such.
North American Sales Contact: Virtio Corporation, 1688 Dell Avenue, Suite 210, Campbell, CA 95008, Tel: 408-341-0844, Fax: 408-341-0849, Email: sales@virtio.com. International Distributors: SDC Systems Limited in the UK at +44 (0)1462 473953; Sightsys, Ltd. in Israel at +972-3-9222771; Toyo Corporation, Ltd. in Japan at +81 (0) 3-3279-0771; MDS Technology Company, Ltd. in Korea at +82-2-2106-6072; and CMI Technologies, Inc. in Taiwan at 886 (-2) 23516362 or SuperLink Technology Corporation at 886 2 26983456.