Atmel Corporation and TimeSys announced yesterday a free Linux Board Support Package (BSP) for Atmel's ARM9-based AT91SAM9 Microcontrollers. The BSP will support the entire range of SAM9 products and includes Atmel's Linux kernel and drivers. A Linux host/cross toolchain for re-building the Linux kernel is part of the basic tools and BusyBox utilities for essential features and commands.

Along with this offering comes a full documentation set and support services, all necessary to validate Linux with Atmel microcontrollers. This is the result of Atmel's participation as a Premier Partner in the TimeSys LinuxLink Onboard Program. This program covers Atmel's ARM926EJ-S-based AT91SAM9260, SAM9261 and SAM9263 microcontrollers and all new products from the same family that will be launched while the agreement is still in place.

Alfred Vadillo, Atmel's Managing Director for 32-bit Microcontrollers said: "The on-going success of our ARM-based microcontrollers depends on the quality of the infrastructure that we build around it. The Linux community is an essential part of this infrastructure, and the extended agreement with TimeSys enables us to provide our joint customers with a faster method to deploy Linux on our processors."

Atul Bansal, TimeSys CEO, added: "We are pleased to have worked closely with Atmel to develop this offering. At TimeSys, our goal is to simplify and accelerate the work embedded developers undertake to create a custom Linux platform. This offering will do just that."

The introductory-level Atmel/TimeSys Linux Board Support Package for AT91SAM Microcontrollers can be downloaded from TimeSys' site as a free offering. More tools from TimeSys are attainable to enhance the free offering. A standard TimeSys LinuxLink subscription is one of these tools and all of them have frequent updates at a nominal cost per year. A Professional LinuxLink subscription, with the TimeSys TimeStorm graphical toolkit and on-line builder included, is also available on a yearly subscription basis.