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ARM, announced it has delivered a port of the Symbian OS (operating system) for ARM Powered(R) 2.5 and 3G Smartphone devices to Motorola, Inc.'s Semiconductor Products Sector (SPS). The port, which has been created ahead of silicon implementation, makes use of the advanced system emulation methodologies from ARM and incorporates video-on-demand and video streaming capabilities.

ARM used advanced system emulation methodologies and the ARM Integrator(TM) development platform, part of the RealView(TM) suite of development tools, to create hardware incorporating an ARM920T(TM) macrocell and a mix of Motorola and ARM(R) peripherals. The Symbian OS was then ported to this platform. This was done before Motorola's implementation of the ARM920T macrocell is available, to reducing time-to-market.

The ARM920T macrocell supports platform operating systems such as Symbian OS, Linux and Windows CE and is well suited for handheld, battery-powered wireless platforms such as PDAs, Smartphones and Internet appliances.

"As a Symbian Competence Center, ARM has extensive experience porting the Symbian OS to new System-on-Chip (SoC) and Application Specific Standard Product (ASSP) devices," said David Boorman, software consultancy services manager, ARM. "Use of our advanced emulation methodology enabled software development to be completed well in advance of the hardware, reducing the time our Partners, such as Motorola, require for system integration and testing of the final silicon implementation."

"ARM's support services have enhanced our advanced multimedia development environment, SoC expertise and software tools to speed the development of our next-generation Smartphone platforms, which will excel in a highly competitive industry. By leveraging these best-in-class technologies, developers can deliver a wider variety of applications using Motorola's total systems solutions," said Buddy Broeker, Motorola's Wireless Emerging Markets operations manager. "Motorola has been impressed by ARM's Symbian Competence Center and its comprehensive scope of services. The company's work has helped us prove to customers that DragonBall MX1 is a great solution in parallel with the silicon implementation."

"As a Symbian Competence Center, ARM provides a comprehensive service to enable Symbian's Semiconductor Partners, such as Motorola SPS, to bring optimized silicon solutions to market more quickly based on SYMBIAN OS," said Mike Whittingham, Semiconductor Partner manager, Symbian. "Along with tool optimization, this further highlights the benefits ARM brings to Symbian's Semiconductor Partners."

Motorola's i.250 (2.5G voice/data) and i.300 (3G multimedia) Innovative Convergence platforms and DragonBall(TM) family of microprocessors are designed to meet a variety of customer needs by providing a comprehensive roadmap with distinct industry advantages for smaller, lighter, lower-cost wireless products. These advantages include flexibility, offering low, mid- and high-tier feature sets; scalability, offering migration paths from 2G and 2.5G to 3G protocols; and connectivity, with Personal Area Network (e.g., Bluetooth(TM) technology), Wide Area Network (cellular) and mobile commerce capabilities.

The Innovative Convergence platform technology embodies 70 years of wireless expertise, 50 years in semiconductors and two decades of leadership in the cellular industry. The i.250 platform provides the industry's most integrated solution -- from silicon to software -- to deliver a wide variety of mobile data applications and services. The i.300 platform is a total system solution that bundles the chipset, software, development tools, reference design, test environments and type certification support. These platforms are engineered to enable global OEMs (original equipment manufacturers) and ODMs (original device manufacturers) to develop state-of- the-art products to enable anytime, anywhere communication for consumers.

The best-selling DragonBall microprocessor family, which is included with the i.300 platform, is designed for advanced information appliances, PDAs, Smartphones, Web browsers/tablets, digital media audio players, handheld computers and mobile data/voice applications.

As a Symbian Competence Center, ARM provides a range of technology services that support Symbian's technology in ARM core-based devices. ARM provides a service focused on accelerating Symbian OS-based product development and maximizing designer productivity through a total development environment and design reuse strategy. Products and services include: SoC/ASSP design; porting to new SoC/ASSP devices; development of ARM peripherals and drivers; system simulation of SoC architectures for Symbian; and integration of ARM software technology.