March 12, 2009. Den Dungen, The Netherlands. Eltan B.V., a European independent engineering company specialised in PC and Communication Technology today announced availability of BOOT from SD Card for x86 based systems.

Eltan created the BIOS support to add SD Card, MMC cards and e-MMC devices as boot device. Modules are available for integration into the Phoenix Technologies and Award BIOS Code bases. The support is also available as a standard Option ROM.

SD, SDHC and MMC Cards and e-MMC devices are very small, low cost and high capacity. They can now be used as boot- and mass storage device when directly connected to an industry standard SDIO host adapter. The host adapter is integrated in the Intel(R) System Controller Hub (SCH) US15W so no additional hardware is required to support these devices.

This support enables a breakthrough price performance ratio since now the cards can be used without the additional cost of a USB card reader device.

The new support enables board manufacturers to integrate the e-MMC devices on their board and these devices driven by mobile phone developments provide the ultimate in size and cost reduction.

“We are excited with the introduction of BOOT from SD Cards” –said Gerard Duynisveld, President of Eltan. “Now our customers can take a further step in decreasing the size and cost of an embedded x86 system. We are also very pleased with the feedback and interest received during the EmbeddedWorld2009 show in Nurnberg.”

About Eltan

Eltan http://www.eltan.com/ is specialised in (embedded) PC and Communication Technology, hardware design, BIOS, drivers, operating systems, and in bringing products to market. Since its inception, Eltan has been an independent engineering company for Phoenix BIOS implementation. Eltan has an impressive list of satisfied customers across Europe, Middle East, India, Africa and the US and the technical experience and short communication channels to establish long-term relations with satisfied customers.

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