April 6, 2006 -- GDA Technologies, Inc. has introduced a modular phone reference board design for reducing development time for enhanced multimedia feature cellular phones and speeding up time to market. The board, called Smart Phone Reference Platform, has been engineered totally by the company's Indian arm in Chennai. It uses a highly modular PDA phone reference design based on the latest Freescale i.MX31 multimedia application processor.

The Platform's goal is to help manufacturers significantly reduce the development time for enhanced multimedia feature phones. Besides mobile handsets and smart phones, the Smart Phone Reference Platform can be used for MP3 players, PDAs, and Video Conferencing Devices. It will further serve as an enabler for anyone creating an i.MX31 platform. The board has also been positioned for future development and allows 3G support.

This new platform will significantly reduce overall qualification and development time for new products, speeding up time to market. One way this modular reference design accomplishes this is by allowing OEMs to evaluate different subsystems such as GSM/EDGE, WiFi, Bluetooth, LCD, Keypad, and camera, among others.

OEMs can now choose from several hardware and software bundles for the Smart Phone Reference Platform, beginning with a fully modular hardware platform. A full set of display/video and wireless subsystems drivers is also available, for easily converting designs into mid-to-high-end PDA/Smartphones.

Currently, GDA Technologies offers a GUI completely based on the Open Palmtop Integrated Environment (OPIE) with an Embedded Linux (standard) operating system. The company will soon introduce a Microsoft Windows Smartphone and Symbian OSs as well. GDA has licensable IP for the platform and will also offer customization.