Dallas, TX and Boise, Idaho — (press release excerpt) — Texas Instruments (TI), Ingenient Technologies, and RidgeRun today announced availability of an Embedded Linux operating system for TI's imaging digital signal processor (DSP) solution that is intended to enable faster and easier development of streaming video multimedia devices. RidgeRun will provide its DSPLinux operating system and Board Support Package (BSP) for the innovative TI imaging platform, and Ingenient will integrate its MPEG-4 technology, a premier
streaming media standard.

The new offering targets developers of next generation multimedia portable appliances, such as digital cameras, digital video camcorders, portable media players, and Webpads. Ingenient's MPEG-4 streaming media technology harnesses the image processing strengths of TI's TMS320DSC24, a low-power, programmable DSP imaging platform, while DSPLinux offers developers an easy way to access MPEG-4 and other multimedia algorithms running on the DSP from the Linux kernel.

The TMS320DCS24 is a one-chip video/audio processor that contains all of the functions required for image and video loading and compression, audio processing, and communication with external devices. Using the same DSP+ARM cores used in two out of three digital cell phones today, the fully programmable multimedia platform is an ideal device used to give products added multimedia capabilities. Using the same DSP+ARM cores used in two out of three digital cell phones today, the fully programmable multimedia platform is an ideal device used to give products added multimedia capabilities. With digital video/audio encoding, high-quality still image processing, and decoding capability, as well as high quality digital music playback capability, the TMS320DSC24 DSP is the ideal processor needed to enable the multimedia intensive products that today's consumers want.

The TI DSC24 demonstration platform, featuring the RidgeRun BSP, includes the DSPLinux software development kit (SDK), Linux OS, drivers and cross-development tools. The fully supported environment includes the full suite of embedded Linux development tools — the GNU compiler, linker, assembler and debugger tool chain, as well as the powerful Appliance Simulator, which allows developers to develop and test their embedded software in a workstation environment and is ideal for tasks such as user-interface development.

The TI DSC24 is available today and shipping in production devices. The next generation DSC24-based demo platform utilizing the Linux OS and MPEG-4 technology is expected to be available in early 4Q 2001.

 
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