SAN FRANCISCO — Top cell phone makers are converging on a more common implementation of Java in handsets. An emerging standard software profile, powered by first-ever hardware acceleration using ARM Ltd.'s Jazelle instruction-set extensions, is fast marching to market, said several OEMs at the JavaOne conference last week.

The new software profile won't end the fragmentation from a host of vendor-specific Java implementations, but it should cut through the confusion that has plagued developers for the last 18 months. Meanwhile, the outlook for standalone Java acceleration chips appears grim, although two chip startups-Nazomi Communications and Ajile Systems-claim to have netted their first design wins.

There's little doubt Java has become the default application environment for next-generation phones. About 94 million Java phones from 22 OEMs have shipped to date, said Jonathan Schwartz, executive vice president of Sun Microsystems Inc.'s software group. "We will outstrip the PC industry. We have volume coming out of our ears," Schwartz said.

But to date those phones have been plagued by incompatible implementations. "There are some 170 makes of [Java] handsets but every one has to be modeled differently because media acts differently on each one," said a manager from one company that distributes Java ring tones.

For example, a chief executive of a Java game developer said a simple command for drawing an arc can be interpreted differently-or not at all-on different Java phones. "I don't know if it's a bug, an implementation issue or what," he said. "I think we all agree fragmentation is the No. 1 problem in this market," said Richard Wong, vice president of marketing for Openwave (Redwood City, Calif.), a cell phone software developer.

The problem lies with the initial set of application programming interfaces for Java on the cell phone. The so-called Mobile Information Device Profile (MIDP) 1.0 was "broad and shallow" and contained a host of options, said Tim Lindholm, chief technology officer for Sun's consumer mobile-systems group. Vendors wrote their own APIs and class libraries for a variety of required security, audio and other functions.

The fix has come in two parts. MIDP 2.0, now available, provides a better baseline of Java APIs, and the so-called Java Specification Request (JSR) 185 defines a superset of Java APIs, including MIDP 2.0, with many of the options removed. JSR 185 could be ratified before the end of June.

At JavaOne, Nokia announced that its Developer's Suite 2.0, available on its Web site in beta form, is based on MIDP 2.0 and JSR 185. Nokia will ship at least one terminal using the software this year, a spokesman said.

Motorola Inc. showed three phones using MIDP 2.0 that will ship by the end of the year: the T725 Edge phone; the A760, which uses Linux and Java and includes a video camera; and the V600, a quad-band phone with still-camera and MP3 capability.

Frank Schultze, a senior wireless Java architect for Siemens Mobile Phones, said the company's next-generation Java architecture, based on JSR 185, will ship in phones early next year. "I think JSR 185 will be a big step in standardizing all the exceptions," said Schultze.

Those three cell phone OEMs along with Sony Ericsson and Sun are hammering out a conformance test to certify Java mobile applications and services that will receive a Java logo. The test should be available by year's end and will be administered by third parties.

Although Nokia and Siemens said the work should virtually eliminate their vendor-specific APIs in future phones, some OEMs said they still will layer on additional APIs. Ironically, Motorola, which led the MIDP 2.0 standards effort, may be among the most aggressive of them.

Motorola's next-generation phones will sport their own APIs for a host of functions including letting applications control incoming or outgoing calls, running multiple apps concurrently, compressing large files, secure access, gaming and controlling a set of embedded LED lights and a multifunction transducer used to create effects on an upcoming E380 consumer phone. "There still will be vendor differentiation above and beyond this [JSR 185] space," said Mala Chandra, director of client applications and architecture for Motorola's cell phone group.

Jazelle poised to leap

Representatives from Motorola, Nokia and Siemens said they have not implemented any hardware acceleration for Java to date, but all three expect to, using the Jazelle technology embedded into ARM cores. Motorola's semiconductor group "is building Java acceleration into the next-generation applications processors" that the company's cell phone unit expects to adopt, said Chandra. Schultze said he expects versions of the ARM 926EJ will provide the first Java acceleration for Siemens' phones.

The trend emerges as one Java accelerator startup, Zucotto Wireless Inc. (San Diego), is widely believed to have closed its doors. The Ottawa Business Journal reported the company closed its Ottawa headquarters in March. Reached by phone last week in Santa Clara, Calif., Warren Weiner, the company's chief financial officer, said Zucotto has not folded but refused to comment further. No one answered calls to the Ottawa office or, at press time, returned messages left with the Santa Clara-based CEO.

"The market for Java processors doesn't seem to have panned out," said Sun's Lindholm. Startups "can't get critical mass, especially with the ARMs, Hitachis and Intels out there" supporting Java on general-purpose processors, he added.

'We have volume coming out of our ears,' Sun's Schwartz reports.

Sun is beginning to consider Java performance on the cell phone solved as it turns its attention to tuning class libraries and graphics stacks for performance. "It's a systems optimization issue," Lindholm said. At JavaOne, Sun and ARM presented work on a Dynamic Adaptive Compiler for Java that could ship in June and a Java optimization software layer, called JTEK, from ARM that will ship by year's end.

The Jazelle extensions are now available in ARM 9, 10 and 11 cores, said Steve Steele, Java program manager for ARM. "Jazelle is going to be in a good proportion of next-generation handsets," he added.

Nevertheless, two startups making discrete Java accelerator chips said they have their first cell phone design wins. Nazomi Communications Inc. (Santa Clara) is sending production volumes to multiple Asia cell phone OEMs including a Japanese company that has been shipping a phone since April, said chief operating officer Jay Kamdar. "We are still kicking and screaming. I think the outlook is very good," Kamdar said. The company's JA-108 accelerator, which sells for $5.59 in 10,000s, is shipping as part of a multichip stack with 128 Mbits of flash and 32 Mbits of SRAM. The 64-mm2 accelerator also assists processing for wavelets, video decompression and graphics.

President and CEO Mukesh Patel said Nazomi will take in several million in revenue this year, break even sometime in 2004 and try to raise a final round of $10 million to $15 million in venture capital by the end of this year to fund next-generation products and expand its sales efforts.

Ajile Systems Inc. (San Jose, Calif.) claims it has its first design win in a smart phone from an unannounced Asian OEM. "What we need to see is the first guy who can show this is efficient. All it takes is the first one," said George Hwang, president.