Fujitsu Microelectronics has added to its Europe-based embedded design support capabilities as it steps up its attack on the local automotive and smart-metering markets.
Last year, Fujitsu announced an expansion of its European software capabilities with the acquisition of Comneon’s software development centre in Linz, Austria.
The centre gave the company an embedded software activity supporting the automotive sector.
This centre has now become the part of Fujitsu Microelectronics Embedded Solutions Austria and this week at Embedded World 2010 is the focus for the launch of a software development platform for 3D graphical human machine interfaces in automotive instrument clusters and infotainment systems.
Called CGI Studio, the OpenGL ES 2.0 based platform is intended to provide a continuous tool chain for the development of 3D graphical interfaces.
Fujitsu now has three European embedded design centres in Germany and Austria with around 150 engineers.
It also has a long-established mixed-signal design activity in the UK at Maidenhead.
According to Mark Ellins from Fujitsu Microelectronics, as much as “70% of the company’s European workforce is involved in applications engineering”.
It has also formed partnerships with Europe-based companies. In the area of automotive this includes BMW and Inova Semiconductors.
Plans for the smart metering market include a collaboration with Zaragoza-based company, Advanced Digital Design.
The Spanish company is a specialist in power line and automatic meter management devices.
Another area of interest for the European embedded business is graphics and Fujitsu has announced an addition to its ‘Jade’ graphics controller family, the MB86R03 ‘Jade L’, which comes with a complete tool-chain.
The MB86R03 Jade L device is an ARM926EJ-S core-based device with Fujitsu’s Coral PA graphics processor.
See: Fujitsu puts low-energy devices and ARM at centre of plans
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