WHAT'S NEW−ARCHIVE 2003/March

Message from the TRON Portability Study Group (Provisional Name)

The ITRON Specifications Study Group (formerly the ITRON Specification Update Group) and the T-Engine Project have joined forces for the inauguration of what has tentatively been called the "TRON Portability Study Group." The group's preparations for its full-scale activities have included research into specifications and the resolution of technical matters related to the fusion of μITRON and T-Engine. Activities will get underway from this coming April, with public announcements and progress reports during the ITRON open seminars slated on June 24. The TRON Portability Study Group will present the results of their activities at TRONSHOW 2004 in December at Tokyo International Forum. We invite everyone involed and anyone else with an interest to attend the presentations.

Overview of the Embedded Systems Conference - San Francisco 2003 and the TRON Association's Exhibit

Larger than any event of its kind, the Embedded Systems Conference - San Francisco 2003 highlights new embedded system products and technology. Presentations and tutorial sessions will be part of the technical conferences to be held. For more details, see the Embedded Systems Conference website listed below. During the event, the North American Liaison Office of the TRON Association will host a TRON Association exhibit in the booth of Accelerated Technology, the Embedded Systems Division of Mentor Graphics, which is charged with the office's business. To those of you attending ESC 2003, we invite you to stop by. Venue: Moscone Center in San Francisco Conference dates: April 23-25, 2003 (Wednesday to Friday) Technical conference: April 22-26, 2003 (Tuesday to Saturday) TRON Association Exhibit: At the booth of Accelerated Technology, Embedded Systems Division of Mentor Graphics Embedded Systems Conference website: http://www.esconline.com

Development Suite for RTOS-based Systems Supports T-Engine: "eBinder for T-Engine"

New from eSOL Co., Ltd. is eBinder for T-Engine, a suite of development tools for systems based on T-Engine and T-Kernel. The BSP （Board Support Package) for T-Engine makes it possible for developers to start development in no time by booting systems from CF cards. Users of this Windows-based suite can quickly become familiar with a variety of multitask programming tools that make task-based development and system analysis easy. The suite also provides the target runtime environment: a file system for T-Kernel, TCP/IP protocol stack, and C library. In addition to T-Kernel, eBinder also supports PrKernel v4 and several different RTOS conforming to the μITRON Specification. For details on eBinder: http://www.ebinder.jp/ For details on eBinder for T-Engine: http://www.esol.co.jp/embedded/index_ebinder_fte.html http://www.t-engine.org/ja/tw77/ebinder.html

TRON Association Programs in 2003

This year, the TRON Association will focus even more on R&D as part of the effort to make the program more dynamic. The Association will also strengthen ties with the T-Engine Forum in order to increase the awareness of TRON realtime OS specification. The main tasks for the program are as follows. Advanced Technology R&D Group Studying trends in advanced information technology. ITRON Specification Study Group Investigating specifications for a smooth transition to T-Engine and examining OS features that cannot be supported by T-Engine. TRON Multi-Script Application Group Developing multi-script character conversion systems for use in electronic books. TRON Education and Promotion Group Working to complete the textbook in March 2003 for a series of seminars to train technical specialists in real-time OS technology in the near future. Other activities Aggressively expanding the North American Liaison Office with the objective of promoting it to the status of a North American chapter.

Development Completed on a μT-Engine Project with the High-Performance SH7145 Single-Chip Microcontroller

Hitachi, Ltd. has completed new development involving μT-Engine. For thisμT-Engine implementation, Hitachi uses the SH-2 core to offer the high-performance SH7145 32-bit single-chip RISC microcontroller. Use of 32-bit microcontrollers has expanded in recent years in an effort to boost device performance with advanced audio and image functionality. To meet these market needs, the SH7145 offers fast processing at 65 MIPS and features a high-capacity flash memory. This technology is be used in a wide array of products, from digital home electronics such as digital video cameras and video printers to fax machines, color copiers, and other OA equipment to industrial devices such as AC servos and sequencers. The μT-Engine-base that uses SH7145 is slated for release in the second quarter of 2003.