OpenMAX is going strong

11/5/2007 3:07 PM EST

I hadn't thought about OpenMAX for a long time until I heard that it had been implemented in the Nucleus OS Multimedia Feature Pack. Curious to see how the standard was faring, I started searching for OpenMAX implementations.

As it turns out, support for OpenMAX had been steadily growing under my radar, particularly in the mobile computing space. TI supports the standard in its OMAP and OMAP-Vox platforms. NVIDIA has implemented OpenMAX on its GoForce 3D handheld Graphics Processing Unit. STMicroelectronics in March of 06 released its "Bellagio" implementation of OpenMAX, offering support for Linux on x86 and ARM platforms. ARM has released sample C code for its implementation, as well as hand coded assembly implementing a variety of OpenMAX compliant DSP functions for the ARM11 and Cortex-A8. Other big players are pledging OpenMAX implementations in the future. AMD, or instance, plans to deploy OpenMAX on its Imageon media processors.

It appears OpenMAX is here to stay. This can only be good for the players involved, which are relying on multimedia applications to drive the mobile computing space they're investing so heavily in.

Comments? Mail me at kentonwilliston@yahoo.com.