Press Releases

Powerful development environment from MontaVista Software drives successful deployment

Düsseldorf, June 25, 2002 -- NEC Corporation announced today that its family of network controllers is now running MontaVista™ Linux®. The availability of Linux as a platform on these next-generation controllers is regarded as an important step to further strengthen NEC's networking devices portfolio.

"There were three main reasons for NEC to select the Linux OS for its family of network controllers," explained Bruno Faller, senior manager at NEC Electronics (Europe). "First, Linux is royalty-free, which gives our customers an important cost advantage. Second, there is a tremendous number of available applications written for Linux, which makes Linux one of the best-supported operating systems. And third, we believe that MontaVista Linux is one of the most powerful Linux development platforms available today and we are giving our customers the best foundation one can think of to realize their product features."

NEC understands that world-class support is crucial for designers to meet their demanding time-to-market requirements in today's telecommunications world. Consequently NEC works closely with MontaVista Software, the company powering the embedded revolution. MontaVista Software provides customers with top quality products and the necessary worldwide support to develop and deploy embedded designs with open-source software.

LEA, a French company and a leading provider of home gateways, has launched a range of home-networking gateway products based on NEC's network controllers and developed on MontaVista Linux. "NEC's network controllers provide a rich set of communications interfaces and high performance MIPS-based CPUs. MontaVista Software provided us a robust and scalable development platform that enabled us to build and deploy our products ahead of schedule and at reduced development costs," said Julien Chaigneau, marketing manager of LEA.

MontaVista Linux for NEC's network controller is not limited to the kernel ported to the network controller platform, but is intended to offer a complete solution for all kinds of broadband access devices, such as routers, IADs (Integrated Access Devices), gateways, etc. This means that the drivers for the various interfaces of the network controllers (Ethernet USB, ATM, etc.) were optimized for performance and throughput. Besides that, a large suite of higher-level networking protocols, starting with TCP/IP and ranging up to PPPoA, and PPPoE, are available as well.

"MontaVista Linux offers a powerful new way of developing embedded solutions and is the natural evolution of open systems," said Cees Boshuizen, MontaVista vice president of sales in Europe. "LEA's next-generation consumer networking solutions powered by MontaVista Linux platforms and NEC controllers are leading the way in this market. We are delighted to be working with such valuable partners."

About NEC's network controllers
NEC's network controllers have been designed as highly integrated system-on-a-chip solutions especially for the networking market. Currently the family consists of 3 members: µPD98501 ("Korva"), µPD98502 ("Markham") and µPD98503 ("Laki"). All of them feature a powerful 100MHz MIPS®-based RISC CPU as main processor and an integrated throughput optimized system and memory controller. Additionally to that, a set of various interfaces, such as Ethernet MAC, USB device controller, and Utopia L2 interface with ATM SAR, are integrated on the chip as well.

About MontaVista Linux
MontaVista Linux, the company's flagship product, boasts unrivalled development support for the broadest range of embedded processor architectures, supporting more than 24 CPUs, over a dozen desktop hosts, more than 65 COTS and reference board platforms and including in excess of 215 application packages. This feature-rich product enables a wide variety of embedded applications, providing a standard platform for designs in communications infrastructure, networking, consumer electronics, instrumentation and control. On June 13, MontaVista Linux received an award from the prestigious French publication "Electronique," which named MontaVista™ Linux® Professional Edition 2.1 as the "Best Embedded Tool and Development Solution for 2002." Earlier this year, MontaVista Linux Professional Edition 2.1 was also named "Best Embedded Linux Solution" at the Linux World and Expo in New York.

About NEC Electronics (Europe) GmbH
NEC Electronics (Europe) GmbH, headquartered in Düsseldorf, Germany, is a leading developer, manufacturer and supplier of semiconductor products in Europe. Committed to meeting customers' cost, performance and time-to-market requirements, the company offers solutions ranging from standard products to system-on-a-chip (SOC) solutions, as well as customized products for next-generation designs. NEC Electronics also offers customers the benefit of state-of-the-art manufacturing facilities in Scotland and Ireland, and the global manufacturing capabilities of its parent company, NEC Corporation. For more information, please visit the NEC Electronics web site at www.nec.de; www.ee.nec.de/telecom

About MontaVista Software Inc.
MontaVista Software, Inc. powers the embedded revolution by providing open-source systems software solutions for embedded developers. Founded in 1999 by real-time operating system (RTOS) pioneer James Ready, MontaVista's principal products include MontaVista™ Linux® Professional Edition and MontaVista™ Linux® Carrier Grade Edition. The Professional Edition is a Linux-based embedded source and binary distribution, cross development platform and a set of tool kits for x86/IA-32, PowerPC, StrongARM, MIPS, SH, ARM, XScale, Xtensa and other microprocessor architectures. The Carrier Grade Edition is a second-generation high availability product that is an ideal Linux platform for telecommunications and carrier-grade applications. MontaVista Software also provides several complementary technology products addressing specific customer needs such as the Java development environment, high availability technology, powerful graphics toolkits and more. MontaVista offers developers a family of products and services for embedded design and development targeted for applications ranging from communications infrastructure to consumer devices.

Headquartered in the heart of Silicon Valley, in Sunnyvale, Calif., MontaVista Software is a privately held company funded by leading investors such as Alloy Ventures, US Venture Partners, RRE Ventures, WR Hambrecht + Co., IBM, Intel Capital, Panasonic and Sony Corporation. For more information about MontaVista Software, please visit http://www.mvista.com or email info@mvista.comor call (408) 328-9200.

Linux is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds. MontaVista is a trademark of MontaVista Software Inc. NEC Electronics Inc. is either a registered trademark or trademark of NEC Corporation in the United States and/or other countries. VR Series is a trademark of NEC Corporation. All other names mentioned are trademarks, registered trademarks or service marks of their respective companies.

Contacts:

NEC Electronics (Europe) GmbH
Oliver Lüttgen
Phone: +49 (0)211 650-3469
E-Mail: LuettgenO@ee.nec.de

MontaVista Software
Joe Samagond
Director of Marketing and Corporate Communications
MontaVista Software Inc.
Phone (408) 328-9234
E-mail: jsamagond@mvista.com

Patricia Colby
PR Strategy and Business Development
Pacifico Inc.
Phone (408) 293-8600 ext. 340
E-mail: pcolby@pacifico.com