Real-time operating systems vendor QNX Software Systems Inc says it will support Motorola Inc’s MPC7400 microprocessor, and its integrated AltiVec vector processing engine. QNX says the chip – which can execute up to 20 operations per clock cycle through AltiVec, compared to the usual 1 to 3 operations – is suitable for the networking equipment OEMs it targets for its own custom. The QNX operating system will support full SMP support multi- processor designs. AltiVec also reduces the need for a separate DSP or ASIC on the system board. Medical imaging systems and multimedia appliances that require MPEG-2 decoding, speech- recognition and 3D graphics are also being targeted by QNX. Support for AltiVec within QNX should be available in the first quarter of next year.
