Taipei, TAIWAN — (press release excerpt) — Core logic and graphics chipset supplier SiS today announced that its integrated-chipset based PC architecture platform has accomplished an important milestone: it has become the first BIOS-free, diskless, single-flash-device PC architecture platform in the world. SiS achieved this result through cooperation with two open source software projects — the LinuxBIOS Project, and the Linux Memory Technology Device (MTD) Project. A prototype will be publicly demonstrated at the Atlanta Linux Showcase (ALS) from Oct. 10-14 in Atlanta, Georgia, USA.

This new system boot architecture combines the innovative ideas of the LinuxBIOS Project (www.linuxbios.org) and the unique feature of the M-Systems DiskOnChip Millennium. The LinuxBIOS Project, led by Ronald G. Minnich of the Advanced Computing Laboratory (ACL) (affiliated with Los Alamos National Lab), aims at providing the minimal booting software configuration for Linux applications that can be achieved by using the Linux kernel to handle most chipset initialization. This leads to a faster booting process and fewer flash memory consumption. In contrast to traditional BIOS, the LinuxBIOS takes less than 32KB of flash memory and enables the whole booting process within 8 seconds. These two leading-edge features are considered to be keys the success of tomorrow's Internet and information appliance products.

With the M-Systems DiskOnChip Millennium driver from the Linux Memory Technology Device (MTD) Project (www.linux-mtd.infradead.org), the SiS630 family is the worldwide first chipset that can use the DiskOnChip Millennium to implement LinuxBIOS. Traditionally, an embedded system needs two seperate flash devices: a boot ROM, holding the system initialization code; and a flash disk, for storing user's data. The DiskOnChip Millennium combines both in one package, and provides an Initial Program Loader (IPL) area of only 512 bytes in size. SiS had to identify the necessary IPL code and minimize it to the required 512 bytes size.

 
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