AUSTIN, Texas — April 2, 2007 — Power.org(TM), the open collaborative organization that enables, develops and promotes Power Architecture(TM) technology, announced it has initiated work to define Embedded Power Architecture Platform Requirements (ePAPR) as part of its commitment to design and deliver end-to-end solutions including technology, software, and systems. The initiative is a collaborative effort from AMCC, Cadence, Ericcson AB, HCL, Freescale, IBM, IPextreme, P.A. Semiconductor, Thales, and Wistron, and participation from current and prospective Power Architecture developers and OEM/ODMs is invited.
“This effort is designed to strengthen the Power Architecture platform across embedded applications and facilitate a turn-key implementation of Power-based products in this market,” said Dave Willoughby, Power Architecture Platform Requirements Technical Subcommittee chairperson and senior technical staff member, System Architecture and Design IBM Systems & Technology Group. “A strong embedded platform architecture with greater commonality and standardization will aid both processor companies and their customers to reduce the time and costs spent bringing designs to market.”
The ePAPR specification will be designed to reduce the time and effort spent on basic implementation such as board, firmware, and software design, integration, and validation, allowing OEMs and ODMs to focus on their own value added designs.
The scalable and extensible platform architecture, Power Architecture has practical applications across a wide range of market segments including server, consumer and embedded applications. Increasingly, embedded vendors are seeking a strong embedded Power Architecture standard that will help bring new technologies such as virtualization to the marketplace more quickly.
“By collaborating and contributing leadership to the ePAPR standardization effort, Freescale is working to make it easier for our customers and partners to interface with different embedded processor families in a standardized manner,” said Syed Shah, Power.org Technical Committee Member and System Architect for Freescale Semiconductor. “The specification helps provide an interface framework that facilitates development of the Power Architecture embedded ecosystem.”
ePAPR will address a broad cross-section of platform functionality for embedded applications, with a core set of requirements as well as optional requirements that provide for multiple implementation points. The platform architecture will take an end-to-end user and solution view to ensure all necessary and appropriate platform architecture elements are considered.
In addition to the ePAPR initiative, Power.org will host a Software Summit and host the first Power Architecture Developer Conference – both efforts designed to enable substantive interaction with the Power Architecture development community.
— The Software Summit, April 19th, will provide a unique opportunity for software developers and development managers to refine Power.org’s software strategy. For information, visit www.power.org/swsummit.
— The industry’s first-ever vendor-neutral event to focus on technical training and developer networking for a broad set of Power Architecture(TM) solutions, the Power Architecture(TM)Developer Conference, will be held in Austin, Texas, September 24 – 25, 2007. For information, visit www.power.org/devcon/07.
About Power.org
The Power.org open community collaborates on hardware and software specifications, standards and solutions based on the Power Architecture(TM) platform. Power Architecture technology is behind millions of innovative products, including the world’s fastest supercomputers, leading video game consoles, and electronic systems in most of today’s car models. Every phone call, e-mail and Web page touches hundreds of Power Architecture systems. Learn about Power.org and Power Architecture innovation at www.power.org.