Motorola's semiconductor division and MontaVista Software announced support for using Mot's latest DragonBall i.MX “applications processors” in handheld devices running MontaVista's embedded Linux software platform. Motorola said the i.MX processors target mobile wireless applications such as smartphones and wireless PDAs.

The i.MX1 and i.MXL, the first members of Motorola's DragonBall i.MX family, are based on an ARM920T CPU core along with a long list of integrated functions, including SDRAM control, LCD interface, video port, dual UARTs, dual SPI ports, USB device port, I2C bus, general purpose I/O, memory card interfaces, and more. The i.MX processors also provide extensive power management capabilities, Motorola said.

The i.MX processors run at a 200 MHz clock rate. However, Motorola emphasizes that “it's not about the megaherz,” claiming that the 200 MHz i.MX processors can outperform much faster processors due to architectural advantages and built-in function accelerators; plus, lower clock rates are a big advantage in wireless mobile devices (longer battery life, less WLAN/WWAN signal interference, etc.).

In an i.MX technology whitepaper, Motorola claims the i.MXL processor (a subset of the i.MX1) outperformed both Intel's Xscale PXA250 and TI's OMAP 1510 processors in a recent benchmarking study.

“i.MX beats XScale and others in key battery-life benchmarks,” a Motorola spokesperson said. “In fact, our tests show that you could watch a feature length film several times over on a Palm V OS running i.MX without recharging the batteries. Competing solutions simply cannot meet this challenge.”

MontaVista Linux Professional Edition 3.0 for Motorola's i.MX1 and i.MXL processors is expected to be released in the third quarter of 2003, the companies said.

 
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