Freescale says it has completed re-integration of former tools subsidiary Metrowerks, now known as “Developer Technology Division,” or “Dev-tech.” The Division is focused on helping Freescale customers exploit the capabilities of chip- and board-level products, and is tasked with creating a “common Freescale Linux OS support infrastructure” that will create, distribute, and support Linux technology for use… by ecosystem partners and community developers.

According to Freescale, Dev-tech has found a home within Freescale's Technology Solutions Organization, where it is “closely aligned” with teams devoted to “silicon design tools, methodologies and flows, libraries, memories, and design IP collateral.” The re-integrated division continues to sell and support its flagship CodeWarrior tools and other products, but does so primarily for the benefit of hardware and software developers evaluating, optimizing, integrating, and deploying Freescale silicon products.

For example, Metrowerks has during the last year released a microcontroller toolkit supporting uClinux on Freescale ColdFire chips, as well as an Automotive Grade Linux development kit for Freescale's MPC5200 telematics chip. The re-integrated division additionally also offers evaluation boards, compilers, debuggers, analysis and simulation tools, and silicon bring-up technology — as well as Linux OS support packages.

Going forward, the Dev-tech division is tasked with contributing “proactively” to a third-party Freescale ecosystem, Freescale says, and establishing a “common Freescale Linux OS support infrastructure.” According to Michael O'Donnell, Dev-tech core technology marketing manager, this infrastructure will help embedded Linux ecosystem partners such as TimeSys, MontaVista, Wind River, and others — as well as community Linux distributors — to integrate Freescale-developed embedded Linux technology in a timely manner. “[Freescale products] are applying more and more hardware acceleration features, and people are looking at ways to get these features up and running quickly. Who better to develop support for that than the semiconductor company itself?” O'Donnell said.

Freescale CTO Dr. Claudine Simson said, “By incorporating Metrowerks' world-class talent and award-winning CodeWarrior products into the Technology Solutions Organization, we are establishing a powerful, centralized team dedicated to helping our customers rapidly exploit and leverage the performance of Freescale embedded products. This will provide Freescale with a differentiating competitive advantage.”

VDC's embedded software group director Chris Lanfear said, “Higher customer performance requirements are leading to dramatically more complex silicon designs and an explosion of silicon variants. To win in this environment, semiconductor companies need to supply their customers with silicon-aware tools that help them extract the advanced capabilities of today's processor designs.”

Lanfear in July wrote an in-depth whitepaper analyzing the business case behind the the reintegration of Metrowerks, and largely praising the move.

Freescale, formerly Motorola's Semiconductor Product Sector (SPS) division, spun out from Motorola in February of 2004.

 
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