Makers of both processor chips and operating systems are well aware of the huge growth opportunities in embedded systems development—for example, in automobiles, where the number of cars in the United States with some kind of “telematics” capability is projected to grow at a compound annual rate of 63 percent over the next five years. Intel opened this month with availability announcements for Pentium-, Celeron-, and XScale-family chips aimed at somewhat more familiar embedded applications such as telecommunications, point-of-sale, media players, and other roles in which one can’t expect to ask for system management assistance from the user.
Also at the beginning of this month, AMD introduced a new reference design for thin-client devices with compact size and low power consumption.
To sell chips into these environments, Intel and AMD need reliable suppliers of companion operating systems that range from Windows CE or XP variants, with their extensive tool sets and other support, to Linux with its vigorous community of open-source developers and value-adding infrastructure architects—and also to well-established real-time operating systems vendors such as Wind River Systems Inc., whose views will be part of a panel discussion on device software trends this Tuesday evening in Mountain View, Calif.
