| Phoenix aims toolsuite at replacing BIOS with CSS |
Feb. 17, 2004
Updated Feb. 18, 2004 -- PC BIOS pioneer Phoenix Technologies says it's finally time for the PC BIOS to fade away -- to be replaced by something Phoenix calls "Core System Software" (CSS). The reason? "Today's connected devices must deliver greater trust, usability, connectivity and manageability in a networked environment," says Phoenix. Initially, Phoenix's CSS efforts will focus on PCs and connected digital devices based on the venerable x86-architecture.
"Today's PCs and other devices must be designed specifically for the Internet while incorporating open x86 standards and addressing the ever-increasing need for more and better device and network security," Phoenix said in a statement. "The PC industry is driving to meet the demand for device security by designing new "trusted computing" technologies into standard x86 platforms."
This week at the Intel Developer Forum in San Francisco, Phoenix launched a tool that it says will enable PC, server, and device developers to design and implement the necessary Core System Software toinitialize, boot, and manage a range of next-generation devices which formerly depended on BIOS for more limited capabilities.
Phoenix's new CSS development toolsuite, called "Phoenix CoreArchitect," is built on top of Microsoft's Visual Studio .NET Professional, with a GUI that has been customized by Phoenix specifically for CSS development, system analysis, and product development for the x86 environment. Among other capabilities, the toolsuite will help developers integrate network standards such as XML, HTML, and TCP/IP into the devices they are developing.
Initially, the suite supports x86 processors only, but Phoenix is considering possible future CSS ports to other processors commonly used in embedded devices. Operating systems which can be used on top of CSS include standard Microsoft Windows, Windows XP Embedded, Windows CE .NET, Linux, and various other OSes that are "well behaved" in terms of their bootup requirements and sequences.
Overall, the suite includes: - PhDebug -- used to step through Core System Software source code, examine platform chipset registers and more.
- Amber Debug Module (ADM) -- when used with PhDebug, this offers an inexpensive, easy-to-use alternative for bus monitoring, code stepping and platform analysis
- BIOSscope -- a set of ten Phoenix-created tools to make system analysis much faster
Further details are available from Phoenix's website.
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