|
|
 Mobile Windows News |  Podcasts |  Videos | Search | Forums | Site News |
|
SDIO Now! 2 announced - the technological gap between Windows Mobile and inferior mobile systems (Symbian, Palm OS) widens July 30, 2004 [General] | By Edward J. R. Windows Mobile is technologically superior to other mobile systems like Symbian or Palm OS. One of proofs of this claim is the fact that only Windows Mobile provides something like SDIO Now! technology: a hardware abstraction layer, that allows hardware manufacturers to produce INPUT/OUTPUT accessories that will work accross several devices from several vendors! Examples of such accessories, existing examples, are: Wi-Fi cards, Bluetooth cards, barcode scanner cards, GPS receiver cards, etc etc. Symbian can't do that, Palm OS can't do that too! Can you dig it, Symbian? No you can't! In a small city "Bellevue", in Washington state in USA, just a couple miles away from Redmond - headquarters of Microsoft, a BSQUARE company is located that introduced SDIO Now! technology initially and now we are getting version 2: * * * * * BSQUARE Announces SDIO Now! Version 2.0 Enables Enhanced Functionality on Windows Mobile and Windows CE-based Smart Devices BSQUARE announced the next generation version of its leading SDIO technology for Windows Mobile and Windows Embedded devices. The forthcoming release of SDIO Now! 2.0 will include features requested by licensees such as support for the SD Card Association’s soon to be released SDIO 1.1 specification, Intel’s PXA270 native SDIO controller, substantial performance enhancements, support for Windows CE 5.0 and Microsoft’s next generation Windows Mobile platform, and other capabilities. “Over 65 smart device makers have joined our SDIO Now! program to gain early access to the latest SDIO technologies,” said Tracy Rees, executive vice-president of sales, marketing and international operations. “With SDIO Now! 2.0, BSQUARE continues to deliver new and enhanced functionality for OEMs, ODMs, silicon vendors, and peripheral vendors.” By supporting the SDIO version 1.1 specification, BSQUARE will enable peripheral device companies to develop drivers for combo cards that feature both secure digital (SD) storage and input output (IO), such as the combination of 802.11 wireless networking and SD storage. BSQUARE’s support of the specification also delivers improved handling of multi-function SDIO peripheral cards. A SDIO multi-function includes multiple IO capabilities in a single card such as a peripheral that features both laser and image scanning functions. Full SDIO support for the new Intel PXA270 processor will be included with SDIO Now! 2.0. The updated Host Driver Development Kits will provide a sample reference driver for Intel’s PXA27x family of mobile processors. The SDIO Host Controller driver will come in source code form and provide for multiple SDIO slot support. SDIO Now! 2.0 contains significant development designed to improve overall throughput for peripheral devices. Loop Optimization has been performed to further increase SD write performance. A new “Soft-Block” function allows client drivers to perform large I/O operations to gain performance by reducing the number of driver stack traversals. When combined with version 2.0’s new “Fast Path” performance feature, thread switching is eliminated as is overhead associated with corresponding operating system calls for thread synchronization in the SD Bus driver. As a companion to the improvements related to increasing throughput, version 2.0 is slated to deliver robust error recovery for host and peripheral device drivers. In addition, with the inclusion of BSQUARE source code for SDIO Now! version 1.1 in the newly released Microsoft Windows CE 5.0, BSQUARE is delivering significant enhancements that will enable semiconductor vendors to take full advantage of CE 5.0 on their chipsets. Version 2.0 also provides a SDIO driver development foundation for OEMs and ODMs developing solutions based on Microsoft's next generation Windows Mobile platform. SDIO Now! customers with current memberships will automatically receive SDIO Now! 2.0 in late Q3, 2004. Companies interested in joining BSQUARE’s SDIO Now! program can gain additional information at www.bsquare.com.  Post your comment (free registration is required to post, but if you register you can edit your posts later) [ 1 Comment ]
   |
| ||||||
| Mobile Windows News | Podcasts | Videos | Search | Forums | Site News |
