Wind River Taps Datalight For Flash Memory

Wind River will resell Datalight's flash-memory product and provide support for the technology within Wind River's VxWorks embedded operating system.

DataLight's FlashFX Pro makes it easier for software to access the NAND flash memory used for storage in embedded devices, such as set-top boxes, cameras, and a range of medical and industrial applications.

Wind River said Tuesday it has licensed Datalight's technology and has also collaborated with the latter company to provide tight support for FlashFX in VxWorks. Wind River claims it will now be a "one-stop shop" for customers to fill their flash memory requirements and receive post-sales support.

"Our customers have relied on FlashFX Pro for years to accelerate NAND integration and speed time-to-market, and now they have one place to turn to meet their embedded flash memory and real-time operating system needs," Marc Brown, VP of marketing and strategy for VxWorks at Wind River, said in a statement.

FlashFX Pro is a flash media manager that makes the storage system appear as a standard hard-drive interface. The technology features pre-written support for more than 300 flash parts, works with all NAND controller and features wear leveling, bad block management and background compaction to better performance, according to Datalight. FlashFX Pro also works with all file systems, including DosFS FAT and HRFS from Wind River.

Intel this year bought Wind River for $884 million in cash. The wholly owned subsidiary is part of Intel's Software and Services Group.

Intel offers its chips with Wind River's realtime operating systems and development tools to embedded device manufacturers of in-vehicle systems, medical devices, storage devices, networking security gear, and wireless telecommunications equipment. In the future, Intel is expected to take Wind River technology further into smartphones and other mobile devices, which Intel is targeting with future versions of its Atom microprocessor.