Sun Microelectronics pushes Java into new markets Partnerships with Toshiba, Rockwell, and LG Semicon will mean Java chips in notebooks, pagers, and even cars By Robert McMillan

April  1997

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San Francisco (April 1, 1997) -- Tomorrow Sun Microelectronics (SME) will announce three partnerships designed to push Sun and its Java technology deeper into the consumer and embedded electronics markets. The announcement will coincide with JavaSoft's announcement of new consumer and embedded APIs for Java, called the PersonalJava and EmbeddedJava APIs. Sun Microelectronics is working with Toshiba Systems Group, Rockwell International Corporation, and Korea's LG Semicon to co-develop various strains of Java chips, each aimed at specific vertical markets. All of the chips will be built on SME's picoJava core and will be sold through the various partners. They will be brought to market by Sun in early 1998. Sun says it has already begun work on the various chips but will not yet have something to show on the JavaOne show floor this week.

The PersonalJava and EmbeddedJava APIs are designed for the home-NC and embedded vertical markets respectively and will allow developers to create Java applications for things like pagers, set-top boxes, and electronic instruments. Specifications for the APIs, along with the Java Card 2.0 APIs (announced last October), will be made available in the second quarter of 1997 with reference implementations due by the end of this year.

With Toshiba, Sun is working on a low-powered chip for use with notebooks and hand-held devices. Raj Parekh, SME's vice president of volume products, says that Toshiba and Sun are also co-developing "roaming" software that will allow remote users to synch up to a server -- presumably Solaris -- and then continue to work while disconnected. Parekh was reluctant to mention specific applications, but he said that the chip could be used for some types of electronic transactions. For example, taxicabs could be equipped with some kind of Java-enabled debiting device that would be able to debit credit card transactions remotely. The advantage here over traditional debit technology, says Parekh, is that "transactions can be done a lot more securely" with Java.

Parekh says that the auto industry is also interested in using a Java chip, jointly developed with Rockwell, that will be optimized for use with the Global Positioning System (GPS) in automobiles. With the GPS chip, drivers will be able to use Java to dynamically download information like directions or photographs either from a cellular or satellite source.

LG Semicon will co-develop a home NC-type product, designed to work with televisions.

Resources

• Sun Microelectronics
  http://www.sun.com/sparc/
• picoJava core
  http://www.sun.com/sparc/whitepapers/wpr-0014-01/

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