Freescale signs strategic deals to strengthen ecosystem

As part of the deals, Freescale intends to share IP, invest jointly in product and technology roadmaps and collaborate on marketing activities. Further agreements are set to be announced in the future. Lisa Su (pictured), general manager of Freescale's Networking and Multimedia Group, said: "The embedded market wants an open ecosystem and choice. It was important for Freescale to sign long term agreements and we will be working with Enea and Green Hills on real time software and with Mentor so we have that strong ecosystem." Noting that products from the partnerships 'will be in the market' this quarter, Su added: "Silicon is important, but so too are tools to debug and program, as well as the ability to switch applications between real time and Linux." The agreements will see the partners collaborating at the earliest stages of design and throughout the entire processor product lifecycle. The results are likely to include an array of preintegrated and optimised solutions that improve performance, ease of use and energy efficiency. A further benefit will be improved time to market for application developers. "Today, everybody is doing their own thing," said Su, "and that's inefficient. These agreements represent a commitment to have software ready when silicon is introduced, rather than the demo quality software that has been available before. Having commercial grade software from multiple vendors – especially for multicore applications – is very important."