Sun Microsystems Inc will have each of its six Java chip partners details their plans to manufacture, use and license their picoJava semiconductor designs at Comdex this week. It’s putting the six in a room in front of the ISV crowd it’s trying hard to attract, given it’s now only designing the platform (picoJava) not building it. Its microJava 701 chip is purely a prototype or software development vehicle it now says. It claims it will reveal more architectural details for ISVs and expects the first Java chip-based devices to be available by the end of next year. It’s not dependent on the availability of real-time extensions to Java that Sun and partners are supposedly working on, nor is the design tied to Sun’s Java implementation. Hewlett-Packard Co or Insignia Solutions Inc Java software technologies will be supported as well.
