Amino Communications has developed a Java environment aimed at the embedded systems market - set-top boxes, PDAs, gateways, seat-back entertainment and telematics devices

The Java programming language is now widely recognised as the technology of choice for e-business. As yet though, there are few consumer e-business products on the market today that run Java applications. Amino Communications, the Cambridge based network appliance technology provider, is redressing the balance with its Java environment aimed at the embedded systems market - set-top boxes, PDAs, gateways, seat-back entertainment and telematics devices.

This article was originally published on Electronicstalk on 21 March 2001 at 8.00am (UK)
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Java applications ported onto Amino designs run faster because application processing is shared across the multiple processors within Amino's IntAct distributed architecture.

Up until now, poor application performance has reduced the deployment of Java applications in the embedded systems market where processing power and memory footprint is limited.

'By teaming up IntAct and Java, we have the ideal system abstraction for fast time-to-market, flexible embedded systems of all types', commented Martyn Gilbert, CEO of Amino Communications.

'Java talks directly to IntAct classes (JIntAct) which farm out requests across the distributed system created out of electronic building blocks, each with its own memory and processor'.

JIntAct is a framework of Java Classes that assist in the development of software that can exploit the IntAct hardware.

Java's strength has been shown to be in the area of middleware.

Here, Amino is using Java as middleware to access smart cards, initiate transactions on additional processors and so on.

Amino's customers can develop Java applications in parallel to development of the embedded system, writing their applications on a PC and porting onto the embedded system once the design is finished.

This provides a fast time to market software development environment that complements Amino's fast time to market hardware approach.

So far, Amino has ported Sun Microsystem's KVM, a lightweight Java ideal for low memory footprints, and Java Kaffe 1.1.16, a full featured Java implementation for those requiring access to the complete range of Java functionality.

Amino also features Tao Group's Intent and Java implementation and together these three Java environments give Amino licensees the flexibility to choose a Java environment that best suits their needs.