MontaVista Software announced today that its embedded Linux Consumer Electronics Edition (CEE) operating system now supports IBM's PowerPC 405LP, an embedded processor that targets “pervasive devices” such as advanced PDAs and cell phones.

Earlier this year, the two companies announced that pairing IBM's PowerPC 405LP embedded processor with MontaVista Linux CEE had the potential to reduce processor power consumption by as much as 50 percent, resulting in an estimated 20 percent overall power savings in devices such as smart phones and PDAs.

IBM and MontaVista Software have collaborated on a power saving technique which the companies call “Dynamic Power Management.” Unlike traditional power management technologies which focus on reducing of power by placing systems into static power-saving modes such as sleep and suspend, when not in use, Dynamic Power Management techniques are designed to save power automatically. For example, in the small amount of time between frames of an MPEG4 video clip, voltage can be ramped down and back up in time to handle the next frame, saving energy in between each and every frame of the video.

According to MontaVista, MontaVista Linux Consumer Electronics Edition 3.0 (CEE) is the first Linux operating system and cross-development environment specifically designed for consumer electronics applications such as mobile phones, digital televisions, set-top boxes, and automotive telematics. CEE for the IBM 405LP is available today, the company said.

 
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