SuperH chooses TimeSys Linux as embedded Linux solution for SH-4 and SH-5 RISC CPU cores

SuperH MicroDev Platform will be shipped with embedded Linux SDKs from TimeSys

Pittsburgh, PA and San Jose, CA - April 9th, 2003 - TimeSys Corporation, a leader in Embedded Linux and Java development solutions, and SuperH, Inc., the leading supplier of multimedia RISC CPU cores, announced a broad strategic partnership in which SuperH has chosen TimeSys Linux as its embedded Linux solution for SuperH CPU cores. As part of the partnership, SuperH will begin shipping TimeSys Linux Standard Edition software development kits (SDKs) with its SH4-202 MicroDev. Additionally, TimeSys and SuperH will work together to develop an embedded Linux platform for SuperH's next-generation line of SH-5 family of CPU cores. Together, the two companies are providing licensees of the SuperH CPU cores, embedded hardware manufacturers and their OEM customers with a ready-to-run embedded Linux distribution and development tool suite for the SH-4 and SH-5 families of CPU cores that will reduce development costs and time-to-market for digital consumer applications such as set-top box, residential/SOHO gateways, automotive telematics systems, industrial controllers and handheld multimedia devices.

"Our partnership with TimeSys provides our licensees and their OEM customers with a solid Linux offering with which they can have total confidence in developing and deploying advanced embedded applications on the SH-4 and SH-5," said Rick Chapman, VP of Sales and Marketing at SuperH. "In addition to the high-performance capabilities of TimeSys Linux and TimeSys Linux/Real-Time, OEMs developing high-volume consumer electronics devices will further benefit from TimeSys' royalty-free licensing and robust development tools to reduce overall cost and time to market."

"SuperH's choice of our products as the embedded Linux development solution for its SH-4 and SH-5 cores is an excellent validation of the performance capabilities and cost saving benefits of our embedded Linux and off-the-shelf software development kits," said TimeSys CEO Larry Weidman. "Licensees of SuperH's microprocessor cores will benefit from being able to provide their customers with a complete embedded Linux distribution and development environment that has been tested and certified to work "out of the box" with their hardware based on the SH-4 and SH-5 cores."

TimeSys Linux is a full Linux distribution that has been enhanced for use in advanced embedded systems. TimeSys Linux is the lowest latency Linux kernel available, is fully preemptible, offers unlimited process priorities, and provides embedded developers with predictable control over the performance of their embedded applications. TimeSys Linux/Real-Time transforms true Linux into a single kernel real-time operating system (RTOS) that goes a step beyond the abilities of TimeSys Linux GPL to meet the predictability and performance requirements of mission-critical, "hard" real-time systems by providing priority inversion avoidance mechanisms and high-resolution timers for fine-grained scheduling. Additionally, unique, patent-pending TimeSys Linux/Reservations technologies ensure system response and predictable performance under extreme loads and overload conditions by reserving CPU cycles and network packet resources for critical tasks.

"TimeSys Linux provides commercial RTOS performance and unique CPU and network resource reservations capabilities that are unparalleled in the embedded Linux space," said Jon Frosdick, Director of Software at SuperH. "Developers can be sure that the embedded Linux solution built around our SH-4 and SH-5 cores will meet their broadest range of performance requirements under any load. Providing this level of performance in a Linux solution for our microprocessor cores will dramatically reduce the risk and cost of developing and deploying advanced embedded applications."

SuperH CPU cores are targeted at consumer, automotive, telecom and handheld multimedia appliance markets with specific emphasis on set-top box, residential gateway, car information systems, modems, digital camera and multimedia players. SuperH, Inc.'s products start with the 32-bit SH-4 RISC CPU core with integrated vector FPU (floating point unit) and the upward compatible SH-5 64-bit RISC CPU core which adds SIMD (single instruction multiple data) capabilities. SuperH cores have been designed for high volume embedded applications optimized for code density, power consumption and die size; for example the SH-4 integer CPU core is only 0.85mm2 in 0.13um CMOS. Future generations will include the SH-6 superscalar 64-bit CPU core and the multithreading SH-7.

TimeSys Linux SDKs are complete software development kits, including TimeSys Linux, tested and certified device drivers that support all I/O peripherals to the edge of the board, cross-platform GNU tool chains, a root file system and full documentation. Professional Edition SDKs add TimeStorm and TimeTrace, TimeSys' Windows and Linux-hosted development and event tracing/debugging tools. Packaged in a complete, royalty-free product, TimeSys Linux SDKs help reduce total cost of ownership, development risks, and time-to-market of advanced embedded systems.

SuperH and TimeSys will showcase existing SH-4 embedded Linux products at the Embedded Systems Conference West in San Francisco later this month, with a demonstration of TimeSys Linux running on the SuperH 7750-SE01 SBC within the SuperH booth (#2126).