WHAT'S NEW-January

WHAT'S NEW－ARCHIVE 2003/January

ITRON Specificication Update Working Group 2003 Activities Guidelines

Having determined a guiding policy for activities throughout the next fiscal year, the group with responsibility for updating ITRON has decided to focus on the following points.

The peripheral functions (application) specifications of kernel for conventional embedded systems, for which all functions are pre-determined during the development of embedded firmware; hardware standardization cannot be attempted for such systems. (We will investigate what we can add to the specification in this application domain.).
Adjusting specifications with a view to T-Engine boards.

In keeping with the above description of the group's activities, the group's name has been revised as follows.

Japanese: ITRON Shiyo Kento WG
English: ITRON Specification Update WG

We encourage the ongoing support of all member companies in the group and all TRON Association member companies throughout the fiscal year 2003.

NEC's T-Engine/VR5500 Board and μT-Engine/VR4131 Board

NEC has developed two types of products for T-Engine - the development platform for the coming era of ubiquitous computing - for sale through Personal Media Corporation. The standard T-Engine board comes with NEC's VR5500 microprocessor with the performance of the desktop PC while the μT-Engine board is powered by the high-performance, energy-efficient VR4131 microprocessor. The VR5500 fitted on the T-Engine board delivers a maximum of 800 MIPS, allowing present users to experience the performance of handsets still several years away in development. Consuming only 2 W of power, the VR5500 can be turned into into a fanless, noiseless computer by using its analog RGB port and USB port. Meanwhile, the μT-Engine features a microprocessor distinguished by 1500 MIPS/W of high-performance, energy-efficient processing - the VR4131. Because the μT-Engine board is more compact than the standard T-Engine, it can be directly embedded in many final products without re-design. Using the 23 square-millimeter VR4131BGA module that internally has the memory used onμT-Engine board, more compact boardfs can be designed in a short time.

・Introductory NEC Electronics microcomputer website
・Standard T-Engine Development Kit brochure from Personal Media Corporation.
・μT-Engine Development Kit brochure from Personal Media Corporation.

New Year's Greeting

T-Engine - the open development platform for the efficient development of embedded systems in the TRON Project - was announced with much fanfare at the end of 2001. Subsequently, in June 2002, the T-Engine Forum was established as an organization to promote the platform. Thanks to your enthusiastic support, the group of 22 founding member companies has grown to include nearly 100 member companies not only in Japan, but also in Europe and North America.

Nearly ten types of T-Engine boards have already been released, and mobile information appliances, IP handsets, and many more ubiquitous network appliances have been introduced, while many forms of middleware are also being distributed. The TRONSHOW event in December proved more popular than ever and attracted a great deal of attention. At the TRONSHOW we could attest to the fact that the T-Engine has begun to gain prominence as the open development platform for the era of ubiquitous computing.

Efforts are now underway to build the Ubiquitous ID Center, an institution dedicated to information exchange in all-pervasive networks in ubiquitous computing environment.

Through these and other programs in 2003, we will continue to promote the development of infrastructure technology in the age of "computers everywhere."

We appreciate your ongoing support for the TRON Project.

Ken Sakamura
TRON Project Leader, University of Tokyo Professor

TRONSHOW2003-01
TRONSHOW2003-02
TRONSHOW2003-03