[Freescale's mobileGT development platform now available to Genesi's open source developer communities and power.org member developers.]

Austin -- Freescale Semiconductor is supporting Power.org with a mobileGT development platform that taps into a large open source development community, helping drive the PowerPC architecture into more commercial and industrial markets.

A collaborative effort between Freescale and Genesi USA, Inc., a new mobileGT Alliance member, introduces application opportunities based on the PowerPC architecture to members of Genesi's open source developer communities as well as Power.org member developers. The technology bundle combines Freescale's MPC5200B microprocessor based on the PowerPC architecture and Genesi's EFIKA reference platform with integrated open source software stack.

"This is a great opportunity to open vast new industrial and commercial arenas to the PowerPC architecture," said Anand Ramamoorthy, general manager of Freescale's infotainment, multimedia and telematics business. "Our membership in Power.org and collaboration with Genesi gives us a pipeline to migrate the outstanding capabilities of our mobileGT platform to a much broader range of markets. MobileGT platform customers can expect to be able to simplify their product development process and add additional features available from the open source community."

The EFIKA is a high performance, small form factor design that features Genesi's Hardware Abstraction Layer and IEEE 1275 compliant Open Firmware (HAL/OF), which gives designers increased flexibility to reduce product development time, speed time-to-market and extend software development from one application based on the PowerPC architecture to another. The platform encourages developers to leverage the PowerPC architecture for their GNU/Linux, OpenSolaris, MorphOS and other operating systems and applications, providing performance and cost benefits for system designs and designers.

"For PowerPC architecture technology to continue its reach into new markets, developers need PowerPC-based platforms supported by open tools, a diversity of operating systems and a collaborative ecosystem," said Nigel Beck, chairman of Power.org. "It is precisely this kind of collaboration between our members that we seek to foster in Power.org."

Future generations of mobileGT platforms are expected to continue to integrate functionality that supports the open source development community, providing the right balance of high performance, low-cost and low-power consumption for the industrial/commercial space.

About mobileGT

The mobileGT name refers to both an architecture and an alliance of key vendors in the navigation, infotainment and telematics industry. Pooling the talents of processor suppliers, RTOS vendors, software module IP providers, system integrators and hardware add-ons helps to ensure that customers will have off-the-shelf solutions when they need them. mobileGT alliance members support and drive adoption of the MPC5200 reference platforms.

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