K-micro announces availability of MontaVista Linux for CatsEye development platform

Addition of embedded Linux significantly simplifies designs; reduces time-to-market for complex ASICs

San Jose, Calif. – September 16, 2009 – K-micro (Kawasaki Microelectronics America), a leader in advanced ASICs, announced the availability of MontaVista Linux for the CatsEye development platform to speed up the hardware and software development time associated with complex ASIC designs. With the Linux OS ported to the CatsEye platform, the designer is free to focus on developing the firmware and drivers for their functions rather than spending time developing the OS port on the base platform.

“Our customers need to get their products to market quickly and efficiently,” said Joel Silverman, vice president of technology solutions at K-micro. With the Linux OS port embedded into the development platform, designers can focus on the integration of their IP with the CatsEye. The MontaVista Linux is based on the CatsEye 2.6 Kernel which also includes a TCP/IP, and an IPSec stack, to greatly simplify the development of networked products.”

K-micro offers designers many options for booting to the Linux OS to enable easy development and debug. The OS supports FLASH boot or NFS boot capability so it can be booted from an on-board flash or external memory as well as from an image on the network These options make it easy to modify or update the OS during the development of the SoC.

The CatsEye supports a wide range of OS’s. For developers who choose a different OS than Linux or wish to make their own Linux port, K-micro offers tools and support.

The CatsEye chip is an advanced SoC that contains a complete CPU subsystem with two MIPS 24Kf cores, two 10/100/1000 Mbit Ethernet MACs, a security processor, memory controllers and a host of other peripherals that are required for SoC development. “When this powerful processing engine is combined with the flexibility of the FPGA board, the easy-to-use development tools, and the MontaVista Linux port, the engineer is free to concentrate on the design and not have to worry about the development environment,” added Silverman.

About K-micro (Kawasaki Microelectronics)

K-micro’s innovative ASIC technologies and world-class design support are used in the consumer electronics, computer, office-automation, networking and storage markets. The company is an active participant in industry standards organizations, including InterNational Committee for Information Technology Standards (INCITS) Technical Committee T10 for SCSI Storage Interfaces, PCI Special Interest Group (PCI-SIG), USB Implementers Forum, Universal Plug and Play Forum (UPnP), the Digital Display Working Group (DDWG), Home Phoneline Networking Alliance (HomePNA), International Telecommunication Union (ITU) and OCP International Partnership (OCP-IP). K-micro has design centers in San Jose, Taipei, and Tokyo. For more information, contact the company at 408-570-0555, or visit http://www.k-micro.us