June 11, 2001 - National Semiconductor Corporation (NYSE:NSM) announced today the availability of a Linux digital video software solution for its Geode™ SP1SC10 reference platform for the development of advanced set-top box products. National has formed a technical partnership with Century Embedded Technologies, a division of Century Software, to lay the groundwork for fast and easy Linux development for multimedia programming. National has developed a full set of Linux software drivers, and Century's WebMedia software provides the tools and environment for developers to build applications and customized user interfaces.
"The open source Linux environment reduces costs, allows access to new applications and patches, and provides a stable and secure platform," said Dave Pedersen, set-top box business unit director at National Semiconductor. "Linux software is seen by many developers as an ideal solution for the next generation set-top box products. We have entered into this technical partnership with Century Software to ensure that the best tools and highest level of technical support is available to developers in the Linux community."
"A whole new dynamic has been created in set-top box technology by combining National's engineering prowess in multimedia processor development with Century's skills as a software developer and integrator," said Gregory Haerr, founder and CEO of Century Software. "The Geode processor's x86 architecture is unique in the set-top box arena and provides the ideal power and performance for a Linux-based system."
Century Embedded Technologies will provide all technical support for National's set-top box original equipment manufacturers, distribution partners, development partners and customers. This will include software ports to popular embedded Linux distributions including Red Hat, Debian, Hard Hat, SuSE, Caldera, Embedix and others. Century will create and deploy a variety of development environments for the desktop and maintain open-source projects based on National's set-top box hardware and software technologies.
The Linux operating system has a large base of support in the software community. It is an open source platform that doesn't require licensing fees, so there have been and will continue to be a wide array of software packages designed to run on the operating system. According to Strategy Analytics, interactive digital television is expected to reach 625 million viewers by 2005.
"As broadcasters of digital video programming add Internet-based services, such as streaming media, interactive content and ecommerce applications, the technical requirements of the set-top box will increase dramatically," said Pederson. "The performance of the Geode processor and the flexibility of a Linux-based platform provide the adaptable development environment demanded by our customers."
Availability
National will begin shipping Linux software upgrades to its existing base of Geode SP1SC10 customers in mid-June. All future versions of the reference platform will ship with Linux tools pre-loaded. To request more information, visit ia.national.com or contact a National Semiconductor sales office. Technical questions may also be directed to Century Embedded Technologies at http://embedded.centurysoftware.com.
About the Geode SP1SC10
The Geode SP1SC10 reference platform offers a superset of flexible, complete silicon and software solutions for the set-top box market. Built around the award-winning Geode SC1200 single-chip processor, the platform is fully enabled for TV broadcast services enhanced with the Internet, time-delay recording, multimedia gateway, video-on-demand, and streaming video, offering an ideal development environment for the wide array of functions emerging in the advanced set-top box market.
About National Semiconductor
National Semiconductor is the premier analog company driving the information age. Combining real-world analog and state-of-the-art digital technology, the company is focused on the fast growing markets for wireless handsets; information appliances; information infrastructure; and display, imaging and human interface technologies. With headquarters in Santa Clara, California, National reported sales of $2.1 billion for its last fiscal year and has about 10,000 employees worldwide. Additional company and product information is available on the World Wide Web at www.national.com.
