Motorola Inc is hoping to put a standards underpinning beneath its ColdFire embedded RISC processor efforts (CI No 2,534), and has announced a software standards committee for Coldfire embedded applications, with 12 tools developers, to promote interoperability among Coldfire-based development tools. The committee and its proposed Coldfire Embedded Application Binary Interface is also meant to enable the development of interoperable software for Coldfire-based applications. Most of the named developers, however, already have strategic agreements with Motorola – eight of them are Motorola Platinum Partners – so the new body appears to be mostly an attempt to recruit a wider audience of tool vendors. The interest is directed more at compiler and debugger tool vendors than other firms. A first release of the standard is due by the summer. The members of the committee include Applied Microsystems Inc, Cygnus Solutions Inc, Diab Data Inc, Embedded Support Tools Corp, Embedded System Products Inc, Green Hills Software Inc, Integrated Systems Inc, Microtec Inc, Orion Instruments Inc, Software Development Systems Inc, Tasking Inc, and Wind River Systems Inc. Microware Systems Corp, one of Motorola’s prominent partners for embedded technology, including ColdFire (CI No 2,743) and in which Motorola has an 11% stake, was not on the list. ColdFire was developed through the High Performance Embedded Systems division of Motorola’s Semiconductor Group and uses the machine language syntax of the Motorola MC68000 embedded processor. At the Embedded Systems Conference-East show this week, Motorola has a $100 ColdFire evaluation package for the MCF5206 board, which will cost $550 after June 10, or once all of its ColdFire boards are sold.
