[Updated Dec. 8, 2005] — A large global consulting firm has entered the market for embedded Linux mobile phone stacks. Wipro Technologies, of Bangalore, India, says its Linux-based Aqua mobile phone reference framework has been successfully deployed on Renesas's SH-Mobile line of application processors for 2.5G and 3G mobile phones.

Wipro describes itself as “one of the world's largest R&D service providers.” It offers a range of computer-related services, including enterprise consulting, product development, and contractual engineering support. For example, Wipro recently won a contract to support Wind River's Linux-based “Platform” products. Wind River Marketing VP John Bruggeman commented at the time, “Wipro is very similar to IBM's professional services team. They can do as much, or as little, as a customer needs.”

Wind River, meanwhile, launched a version of its own embedded Linux OS targeting mobile phones last month.

Wipro's Aqua

Wipro describes Aqua as “a reference design that brings together under a modular framework a Linux OS, the associated drivers, a complete application framework, and the applications for a complete mobile phone.” The stack does not, however, include a kernel — customers must use a third-party or semiconductor vendor-supplied kernel, Wipro says. Aqua supports “any variant of the embedded Linux OS,” Wipro says. Additionally, it is architecture-agnostic, and can be ported to any processor to which Linux 2.4 or later has been ported, the company claims.

Aqua architecture
(Source: Wipro)

Wipro says that Aqua has a highly modular design that simplifies customization, including the modification or removal of any application components, and the addition of third-party components.

Key components of Aqua include:

• Telephony Abstraction Layer (TAL) — an API that shields developers from the complexities of the baseband processor and the third-party baseband stacks that work with Aqua. The TAL is based on standards, and allows developers to build voice, data, and network-related applications, Wipro claims. The TAL also allows Aqua to be used in designs supporting multiple RF network technologies, Wipro says (more about that below)
• Graphics Abstraction Layer — a rendering layer, window manager, and widget set with high-level APIs and a tiny footprint of 50KB
• Applications — a modular set of Wipro-developed and open source applications provided to validate the framework, Wipro says. Includes voice, SMS, phone book, call register, PIM, browser, and camera applications

Wipro claims that a “basic configuration” of the complete Aqua stack, exclusive of a Linux kernel and drivers, fits in 700KB of Flash memory, and requires 620KB of RAM.

SH-Mobile port

Wipro says it has ported Aqua to an unspecified processor or processors in Renesas's SH-Mobile family of chipsets for 2.5G and 3G mobile phones. Renesas's SH-Mobile processors are based on SH-4 (Super-H) cores, with newer versions such as the SH4AL-DSP-powered SH-Mobile3 adding DSP instructions as well.

Renesas recently partnered with NTT-DoCoMo, the world's largest telecommunications company, on a mysterious “LSI” (large-scale integration) mobile phone chip that began sampling in August. The unspecified LSI — possibly a multi-chip module incorporating dual baseband processors and a single SH4 applications processor — aims to allow a single phone design to operate under both/either W-CDMA and/or GSM/GPRS networks, Renesas said at the time.

Development services

Unsurprisingly, Wipro says it stands ready to support Aqua with a wide range of development, engineering, and testing services. Available services include:

• Third-party component integration
• SoC (system-on-chip) and board design services
• Porting Aqua to other architectures and processors
• Driver development to support desired peripherals
• Application development
  • Additional features/services
  • User interface customization
• Testing
  • Planning, execution, and results analysis for applications
  • feature, regression, and interoperability testing for mobile phones developed with Aqua

Wipro's VP of wireless networks and devices, Vijayakumar I, said, “Aqua is a reference framework for Linux that contains a small scale application framework for mobile devices, a small graphics tool kit, and a communication function abstraction layer. The environment requires few resources, so it is easy to develop the user interface for embedded equipment. Also, various reference applications make the development of multimedia mobile phones easier.”

Renesas's GM of system design, Hideaki Chaki, said, “SH-Mobile is an application processor LSI for mobile phones that handles functions related to games, audio playback, video distribution, and the like. It is already well established in the world market, having been adopted by approximately 30 companies for use in some 90 mobile phone models. We are very pleased that by collaborating with Wipro, we will now be able to extend the range of SH-Mobile solutions to Linux as well.”

Availability

Aqua is available now for SH-Mobile processors under a non-royalty bearing license, Wipro says.

 
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