Codethink Adds “Open Source 3D Graphics Drivers for ARM Devices” to its Services

Jan. 25, 2012 - PRLog -- Codethink Limited, a provider of engineering services for mobile and embedded devices, today announced its open source graphics engineering services targeted to embedded and mobile device manufacturers, ecosystem partners and customers such as mobile application/solution developers, telecommunications operators and enterprises wishing to create their own custom system images for consumer devices.

Codethink’s key open source graphics engineer, Luc Verhaegen, has tested a prototype for the very first fully open source GPU driver on a mobile device.

Mr Verhaegen, a widely respected display device software engineer, will kick off an open source community project for ARM based mobile and embedded devices at the Free and Open Source Developers’ European Meeting (FOSDEM), 4-5 February 2012 in Brussels.  

At FOSDEM, http://fosdem.org/2012/schedule/event/mali, Mr Verhaegen will demonstrate an open source driver prototype which will work with currently shipping ARM Mali 200 and 400 graphics processing units (GPU). This opens the way for ARM platform GPUs to be powered by entirely open source software 3D graphics device drivers.  

Mr Verhaegen’s breakthrough will help device manufacturers more cost effectively integrate GPU device drivers with their chosen operating system.  

“The MALI hardware is well structured and beautifully simple. It is the perfect basis for a community developed open source driver,” said Mr Verhaegen.

For the entire value chain of mobile and embedded device solutions and applications developers, this means increased flexibility and demonstrates the value of community contributions. Linux and Android device manufacturers, for example, already benefit from open source development.  This advance empowers mobile and embedded device manufacturers to innovate with design-specific graphic capabilities and to enable more advanced device-based applications.

“This is a fantastic achievement by Luc, and an exciting opportunity for the mobile and embedded developer community,” said Paul Sherwood, Codethink’s CEO.  “Device manufacturers, consumer device resellers, telecommunications companies,and applications developers will benefit.“  

Device manufacturers and software engineers who want to know more about Codethink’s mobile and embedded 3D graphics engineering services can reach us at sales@codethink.co.uk.  For those who wish to participate in the open source 3D graphics driver project, more details will be announced at FOSDEM or follow www.codethink.co.uk/news for updates.  

About Codethink Ltd.

Founded in 2007, Codethink, provides software development and consultancy services staffed with some of the embedded and Linux open source communities’ best engineers.  While headquartered in Manchester UK, team members work on projects in many of the mobile and embedded device global hotspots, including Asia, Northern Europe and North America.

Customers range from innovative startups to household names - they turn to Codethink for specific expertise, difficult projects, or to help them meet deadlines.  Codethink’s engineers help clients achieve their technical applications and system software goals - where complexity, technology constraints or project deadlines drive a need for exceptional software engineering.

Codethink’s team have helped deliver software for hundreds of organisations, on thousands of projects, for many millions of devices.  

Find out more about Codethink at www.codethink.co.uk

# # #

Codethink provides software development and consultancy services with particular expertise in Linux systems, the Linux kernel as well as mobile and embedded systems.