ST-Ericsson has launched the Igloo open source community and the Snowball developer board to accelerate the development of system and software innovations that fully harness the capabilities of its smart phone and tablet platforms. ST-Ericsson is confident that together, the low cost, feature-rich developer board and community will facilitate and drive innovation of software for Android, Ubuntu, and MeeGo embedded devices based on ST-Ericsson’s platforms.

Article Tools

• 

The production-grade small-sized Snowball developer board combines ST-Ericsson's newly announced Nova A9500 dual-core application processor, with micro electro-mechanical systems (MEMS) (3D gyroscope, accelerometer, magnetometer, barometer), GPS, and connectivity features. Calao Systems designed the board, while Linaro developed the board's low-level software, which is optimized for the Nova A9500's ARM dual Cortex A9-based architecture.

At the heart of the Igloo community will be the web portal, where device developers, manufacturers and application developers can exchange information and ideas and solve problems collectively. ST-Ericsson has selected open source specialist Movial to develop, support and run the Igloo community.

"Igloo is the one, unified space where Snowball users can quickly ramp up, get recommendations for hardware interfaces and peripherals, as well as complete software packages that are already aligned with open source requirements and standards, " said Tomi Rauste, President of Movial Creative Technologies.

 Two versions of the Snowball developer board will be sold by Calao Systems from the second quarter of 2011. The software development version will cost about $200, while the product development version (also usable in end products) will cost about $300.

Igloo Web Portal

ST-Ericsson

Related Article