MontaVista and Atheros Deliver High Performance SDIO Stack to Open Source Community

Business Wire, Dec 19, 2006

MontaVista Offers Architecture Independent Solution in Future Mobilinux Product

SANTA CLARA, Calif. -- MontaVista Software, Inc., the leading embedded Linux provider for the telecommunications, mobile and embedded markets, today announced the creation of a new open source project to provide full SDIO functionality to Linux. Using an extensive code base developed by Atheros, the collaborative effort will provide an open source and architecture independent solution that offers high performance throughput while maintaining the flexibility to support various SDIO host controllers and devices.

MontaVista will apply its broad open source expertise and hardware experience to the Atheros SDIO code in order to support the latest community standards. The Linux community participation should result in a more robust and complete solution with rapid problem resolution and better overall design. As part of the initial deliverable, MontaVista will be integrating wireless LAN (WLAN) and SD/MMC card support. The project will allow for a SDIO stack that can be merged into the mainstream Linux-MMC code as soon as the SDIO API framework is available. Until then, MontaVista will make the SDIO stack available to the community by opening a SourceForge project called SDIO-linux.

"MontaVista and Atheros SDIO stack is a key differentiator and compelling value add for mobile device vendors," said Jim Ready, CTO, MontaVista Software. "We believe this will extend MontaVista Linux lead as the defacto OS standard for mobile devices."

The stack comes complete with drivers for the Host and Bus controllers, SD/MMC memory cards, SDIO-bluetooth and Atheros' WLAN driver. The stack expands the capabilities of MontaVista Linux enabling seamless integration of SD and MMC memory cards along with SDIO peripherals like Bluetooth, GPS, WiFi, scanners and modems.

"Through our partnership with MontaVista, Atheros brings low power, high-performance Wi-Fi solutions to the Linux open source community, enabling the vast intellectual resources within this group to develop advanced wireless devices," said Sam Endy, vice president and general manager, mobile wireless for Atheros. "By using the Linux platform, mobile phone and portable consumer device manufacturers can more easily develop a new class of Wi-Fi enabled handheld products."

The stack will first be released in a commercial product with Mobilinux 5.0, which is scheduled for announcement during the second half of 2007.

About MontaVista Software

MontaVista is the leading embedded Linux provider for the telecommunications market, mobile and embedded markets. MontaVista delivers a complete, flexible and open operating system which allows designers to innovate across a wide range of mobile and wireless devices and communications infrastructures. Headquartered in Santa Clara, Calif., MontaVista has operations in 15 countries. For more information, please visit www.mvista.com.

Linux is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds. MontaVista is a registered trademark of MontaVista Software Inc. All other names mentioned are trademarks, registered trademarks or service marks of their respective owners.