A Swiss vendor of ASICs (application-specific integrated circuits) for consumer electronics products plans to contribute drivers to Linux. Micronas said it will release device drivers for its audio/video decoders and ATSC/DVB-T demodulators, to enable “time- and cost-sensitive development of Linux-based media center PCs and consumer electronics products.”

Affected products include… Micronas A/V front ends, digital demodulators, and PCIe controllers, along with an H.264 decoder and MPEG-4 encoder. The drivers will be “shared and common” across multiple product lines, including “DeCypher,” “Cypher,” and “nGene” families. The move is in keeping with the company's policy to offer “feature-complete drivers and applications” for its line of reference designs for the IPTV, PC-TV, nDTV, and DMA markets, it said.

Nathan Lutchansky, lead embedded systems developer at Carson Grey Design, contends that “This effort shows that Micronas is savvy enough to recognize and capitalize on the evolving models for Linux-based embedded software development in both the commercial space and the informal open-source developer community.”

According to Ralph Metzler, author of the Linux DVB API, stated, “Micronas has demonstrated market leadership through this initiative. We are pleased to see this clear commitment to open platforms.”

No timeframe for availability was given.

 
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