STMicroelectronics (NYSE:STM),
one of the world's leading semiconductor companies and the number one supplier
of MEMS (Micro-Electro-Mechanical Systems) motion-sensing chips for consumer
and portable applications, has announced that its LIS302DL 3-axis accelerometer
is being used by Openmoko, Inc to provide motion-sensing functions in Openmoko's
Neo Freerunner LINUX-based mobile open platform.
Openmoko(TM) is a project dedicated to delivering mobile phones with an open
source software stack. The Company is currently selling the Neo Freerunner phone
to advanced users and application developers.
"ST's accelerometers, such as the LIS302DL, and gyroscopes, such as the
LY530AL, are widely used to enable advanced motion-sensing functions, such as
portrait/ landscape rotation, pedometer, and menu browsing and now the Open
Source community will be able to create even more new applications that exploit
our motion-sensing technology," said Benedetto Vigna, General Manager of
ST's MEMS and Sensors, Transceivers and Healthcare division. "This confirms
our leadership in this exciting field and will further strengthen our position
in handsets and mobile applications."
The Neo Freerunner is a GSM tri-band mobile phone with a VGA touch screen, 2D/3D
graphics acceleration, 256 Mbytes of NAND Flash memory, Wi-Fi, AGPS, and Bluetooth
2.0, as well as 3-axis motion sensing. The Openmoko GNU/Linux-based software
stack is 100% FOSS (Free Open Source Software), supported by GNU/Linux development
tools.
"We chose the LIS302DL because we wanted to include reliable and accurate
motion sensing in the Neo Freerunner," said Steve Mosher, VP of Marketing,
Openmoko. "In addition to its role as a mobile phone, developers are embracing
the open hardware, open software and open CAD of the Openmoko platform to create
a wide range of new products in applications such as healthcare, industrial,
tourism, communications, entertainment and scientific visualization and motion-sensing
will play a key role in many of them."