<FONT COLOR="RED"><B>ESC:</B></FONT> ARM signs Windows CE partners

ESC: ARM signs Windows CE partners
LOS GATOS, Calif. — ARM Ltd. has extended its support for the Windows CE operating system by creating a consortium of silicon vendors who are developing ARM-based chips targeting that operating system. Initial members include Cirrus Logic Inc., Intel Corp., LG Semicon and Texas Instruments Inc.

Members of the consortium will produce ASICs and application-specific standard products geared to the portable, multimedia, automotive and vertical embedded markets. The consortium is intended to give added clout to ARM's silicon partners. "Rather than having these companies independently talk to Microsoft, we can act as a focal point," said Rod Crawford, director of third-party programs for ARM (Cambridge, England).

ARM has been working with Microsoft since 1996 to port Windows CE to the ARM architecture.

Tool support will be provided via the Microsoft Embedded Tool Kit, which includes a compiler and a debugger. Further, ARM and the Microtec division of Mentor Graphics Corp. have announced an alliance to create new software-development tools for Windows CE-based systems running on ARM cores.

While Windows CE is not generally aimed at "hard" real-time applications, Crawford said that the ARM architecture contains a real-time interrupt pin. By using this pin, he said, a designer can implement a real-time application using Windows CE.