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Samsung Joins the Palm OS Ready Program and Passes PalmSource Certification
PalmSource and Samsung Offer Certified ARM Chips to Palm OS Licensees
SUNNYVALE, Calif., March 3, 2003 -- PalmSource, Inc., provider of the world's most popular operating system for handhelds and smart phones and the Palm OS subsidiary of Palm, Inc. (Nasdaq: PALM), today welcomed Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., a leader in system-on-a-chip technology, to the Palm OS® Ready Program. Samsung brings expertise in wireless chip sets and memory technology to the program, which lowers development cost and shortens time-to-market for Palm OS licensees manufacturing ARM-based handhelds and smart phones. Samsung joins an impressive list of Palm OS Ready Partners including ATI Technologies, Intel, MediaQ, Motorola and Texas Instruments.
"We are proud to welcome Samsung to our program. The caliber of industry luminaries in the Palm OS Ready Program strengthens the entire Palm Economy," said David Nagel, president and CEO for PalmSource. "The Palm OS Ready program is helping to bring ARM-based Palm Powered™ devices to market faster and more efficiently, enabling licensees to deliver products that provide a variety of enhanced multimedia, security, and wireless benefits."
Samsung's chip, the S3C2410, features an ARM920T CPU core and is the world's first System-on-Chip (SOC) to have a NAND flash boot loader. The S3C2410 also offers a set of tailored peripherals that are desirable for smartphones and portable handhelds. For example, the processor has SD/MMC and SDIO support, which enable mobile devices to support expandable storage capacity and SDIO protocol devices such as digital cameras through a single slot. The S3C2410 is now shipping in discrete form and a System-in-Package (SiP) solution has been announced-integrating 256Mb NAND Flash and 256Mb SDRAM with the S3C2410 in a single package for substantial board real estate and power savings.
Samsung's application processor and reference board have already passed Palm OS Ready certification; the final step silicon providers must take before their chips can be included in new Palm Powered devices. The certification process puts the chips and driver software layer through rigorous performance and compatibility testing. It facilitates the solution's high performance, ease-of-use and software compatibility standards the Palm OS platform has established in the industry.
"Samsung is known for delivering reliable, powerful and low-cost chip solutions and now they are tailored to meet the specifications of Palm OS," said Dr. Yun-Tae Lee, vice president of Samsung Electronics' Mobile Solution Project. "PalmSource has created a highly efficient certification process and we look forward to working closely with PalmSource and its licensees to bring new and innovative ARM-based devices to market."
Palm OS Ready Program
By licensing components of the Palm OS platform to silicon providers, PalmSource is enabling them to provide more complete processor solutions to licensees of the Palm operating system. This saves licensees development time, freeing them to focus technical resources on innovative differentiation based on their own areas of expertise. Users of Palm Powered devices benefit by having more innovative mobile products to choose from, available in the market sooner. The Palm OS Ready program was launched in July 2001.
About Samsung Electronics
Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd., is a global leader in semiconductor, telecommunication, and digital convergence technology. Samsung Electronics employs approximately 70,000 people in 87 offices in 47 countries. Samsung Electronics is the world's largest producer of advanced semiconductors, TFT-LCDs, CDMA mobile phones, monitors and VCRs. Samsung Electronics consists of four main business units: Device Solution Network, Digital Media Network, Telecommunication Network and Digital Appliance Network Businesses.
The Device Solution Network specializes in semiconductor and TFT LCD display products for industrial, mobile and advanced computing applications, offering a full line of key solutions of DRAMs, SRAMs, Display Driver ICs, Smart Card ICs, TFT LCD panels and Flash memories. The Device Solution Network operates 11 overseas sales subsidiaries and mass production facilities to maximize on hand customer support. For more information, visit http://www.samsungsemi.com.
Samsung Semiconductor Inc., a wholly owned U.S. subsidiary of Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd., is located in San Jose, Calif. More information can be found at http://www.usa.samsungsemi.com.
Samsung Semiconductor Europe, a wholly owned subsidiary of Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., is headquartered in Frankfurt, Germany and London, UK with sales offices all over Europe. More information can be found at http://www.samsungsemi.de.
About PalmSource
PalmSource is the company behind Palm OS, the world's most popular operating system for handhelds and smartphones. Licensed by industry leaders -- including Acer, AlphaSmart, Fossil, Garmin, GSL, Handera, Handspring, HuneTec , Kyocera, Legend, , Palm, Samsung, Sony, Symbol, and Palm OS Ready Partners including ARM, ATI, Intel, MediaQ, Motorola, Texas Instruments --Palm OS has been shipped on more than 25 million handhelds and smartphones, and given rise to a huge community of users, enterprises, developers and manufacturers, who together make up the Palm Economy. PalmSource's new headquarters are located at 1240 Crossman Ave. in Sunnyvale, Calif. PalmSource is a subsidiary of Palm, Inc. (Nasdaq: PALM). More information about PalmSource, Inc., is available at www.palmsource.com. Information about Palm, Inc. is available at www.palm.com/aboutpalm.
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PalmSource and Palm OS are registered trademarks and Palm Powered is a trademark of PalmSource, Inc., a subsidiary of Palm, Inc. Other brands may be trademarks of their respective owners.
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