PR releases

Tools for new Symbian OS version give mobile developers flexibility and choice

Symbian OS v9 supports high performance ARM RealView compiler, CodeWarrior v3.0 IDE, free GCC 3.4 compiler and new free Eclipse-based IDE

London, UK – 2 February 2005 – In parallel with today’s announcement of Symbian OS™ v9, Symbian announces that a wide range of standards-based tools designed to facilitate the development of phones and applications based on Symbian OS v9.

For professionals working on phone and high end application projects, 'CodeWarrior for Symbian OS' v3.0 provides IDE support for Symbian OS v9. CodeWarrior offers a comprehensive set of features for device integration, application, middleware and game development projects.

For entry level application development, Symbian is developing an IDE based on the open source Eclipse tool platform. Eclipse-based tools for Symbian OS v9 will be made available for free from the Symbian website in the second half of 2005.

Symbian has used ARM’s RealView Compilation Tools (RVCT version 2) to build Symbian OS v9. This high performance compiler replaces the GCC 2.98 compiler used previously. RVCT enables substantial performance improvements in key phone capabilities such as graphics, multi-media, cryptography as well as artificial intelligence and other types of computation used especially in gaming applications. On ARMv 5 -based chipsets initially being used for phones based on Symbian OS v9, the performance differential between RVCT and GCC 2.98 is greater than 30 % for intensive computing tasks. As new ARM architecture features such as ARMv 6, Thumb ® - 2 and the Neon™ SIMD pipeline are introduced into Symbian OS phones in the next two to three years, the performance differential will widen to orders of magnitude.

Symbian continues to support a free GCC compiler for application development in contexts where high performance commercial compiler is not required. Symbian OS v9 initially requires a GCC 3.4 release instead of GCC 2.98 to assure compatibility with RVCT. GCC support for Symbian OS v9 will be available from Symbian from the middle of 2005.

RVCT and GCC compatibility is assured by the Application Binary Interface for the ARM Architecture (ARM ABI) that has been implemented in Symbian OS v9. This industry-backed standard enables tool chain interoperability, support for all C++ language features including RTTI and exceptions, and support for future ARM instruction-set and CPU architectures. The ABI has been optimised for performance and memory footprint, as well as to provide future-proofing against anticipated evolution in ARM architectures, C++ language and software industry tools standards.

The ARM ABI also enables commercial compiler vendors to target Symbian OS v9 with high performance compilers, providing greater compiler choice to phone vendors and high-performance application developers. For example, the Intel® Software Development Tool Suite and Texas Instruments’ Code Composer Studio both include high performance optimising compilers for Symbian OS.

Symbian

“Symbian OS v9 is supported by a range of development tools to suit the needs of every developer, whether they are working directly on Symbian OS phone development projects or whether they’re part of the growing ecosystem of developers creating applications that target Symbian OS phones, the world’s largest installed base of smartphones”, said Morten Grauballe, vice-president, Product Management, Symbian Ltd. “ARM ABI compliance and entry-level Eclipse-based IDE for application development shows Symbian is committed to creating a competitive market for Symbian OS development tools based on open standards that meet the needs of both price-conscious developers, and developers of performance-critical phone software.”

ARM

“ARM’s compiler team has had considerable input into the evolution of the ARM architecture, and has many years experience targeting the ARM 32-bit and Thumb 16-bit instruction sets, resulting in industry-leading code size and performance for our customers”, said Ian Johnson , Product Manager for RealView Developer Suite at ARM. “The adoption of the ABI for the ARM architecture enables users to choose the most appropriate toolchain for their application area, thus further strengthening ARM’s position as processor of choice across a wide range of digital devices.  Symbian’s support for the ABI for the ARM architecture has helped drive it from concept to reality.”

Intel

“Intel XScale® technology delivers leading edge performance for handhelds and phones", said Peter Horn, embedded development tools engineering manager in Intel’s Software Products Division. "We are working closely with Symbian to provide support for Symbian OS v9 and intend to provide a set of sophisticated tools that will leverage hardware capabilities, shorten the development cycle of new phones and software applications, and deliver a significant performance boost to Symbian OS phones based on Intel XScale® technology.”

Texas Instruments

“Through our strong relationship with Symbian, TI’s OMAP processors and complete Symbian OS v9 software package including a full Media Driver Framework implementation (MDF) deliver maximum multimedia performance for 2.5 G and 3G mobile terminals,” said Paul Werp, Marketing Director Cellular Systems of TI.  “TI delivers tools to support the ABI for the ARM architecture as part of our Code Composer Studio product. These tools, along with those developed by TI’s and Symbian’s tools partners, give Symbian developers all the tools they need to develop optimised handset software.”

About Symbian Ltd

Symbian is a software licensing company that develops and licenses Symbian OS, the global open industry standard operating system for advanced, data-enabled mobile phones.

Symbian licenses Symbian OS to the world’s leading handset manufacturers. The following Symbian OS licensees have Symbian OS-based mobile phones in production and development: Arima, BenQ, Fujitsu for NTT DoCoMo FOMA, LG, Lenovo, Mitsubishi, Motorola, Nokia, Panasonic, Sendo, Sharp, Siemens, Samsung and Sony Ericsson. In 2003, over 6.67 million Symbian OS-based mobile phones were sold worldwide and almost 20 million have been sold to date.

Symbian has its headquarters in London, United Kingdom with offices in the United States, Europe and Asia (Bangalore, Beijing, Seoul and Tokyo).