TI Unleashes OpenLink Wireless Connectivity DriversTI Unleashes OpenLink Wireless Connectivity Drivers

Semiconductor Company Texas Instruments (News - Alert) Incorporated has revealed the availability of OpenLink drivers, a mobile-grade, battery-optimized Wi-Fi solution to the open source Linux community as part of the OpenLink project.

Company officials customers and developers who wish for battery-powered Wi-Fi products can now use TI’s OpenLink drivers, and also gain with native kernel benefits such as tested technologies, faster time-to-market, and simplified re-integration when upgrading from one kernel version to the next.

“OpenLink marks TI’s commitment to deliver cutting-edge wireless capabilities into the hands of Linux developers,” Oz Krakowski, open source community manager, wireless connectivity solutions, TI, said in a press release.

“We’re enabling built-in kernel access to TI’s latest WiLink combo solutions, bringing low power wireless communication to battery-operated mobile devices such as smartphones, tablets, eBooks and industrial PDAs. We intend to continue sharing our expertise with regular OpenLink submissions to the Linux kernel—where TI can work collaboratively to strengthen these solutions,” Krakowski added.

The OpenLink project is focused on providing a wide range of wireless connectivity solutions for native Linux. In addition to Wi-Fi, the OpenLink project includes native Linux solutions for Bluetooth and FM technologies, and will expand to support other technologies such as ANT, Bluetooth Low Energy and ZigBee.

TI is focused on bringing a number of low power software features and enhancements that were previously available only in proprietary solutions. These features include support for drivers suspend/resume, runtime power management and wake-on-wireless, among others.

OpenLink wireless connectivity drivers attach to open source development platforms such as BeagleBoard, PandaBoard and other boards. Whether working with Android (News - Alert), MeeGo or other Linux-based distributions, developers can now access code natively as part of their kernel builds to introduce the latest low-power wireless connectivity solution into their products.

Apart from this, community support and resources are also made available 24/7 via the active OpenLink community on www.openlink.org, said the company.

Recently, TMC (News - Alert) reported that TI is the first semiconductor company to receive certification from the USB Implementer's Forum (USB-IF) for its SuperSpeed USB (USB 3.0) four-port extensible host controller (xHCI). In addition to the four-port host controller, the TUSB7340, TI also achieved certification for its two-port host controller, the TUSB7320.