Vulcan Machines puts the pinch on Java set-top chips. (Upfront: latest news and insight).(Brief Article)(Product Announcement)

U.K.-based start-up Vulcan Machines has released the Moon2, a hard-wired processor with Java Virtual Machine (JVM) technology for advanced digital set-tops and mobile phones.

Vulcan Machines claims its hardware approach to the JVM provides better performance and costs than software based JVM applications.

JVM is a core technology for Europe's MHP specification and represents the bulk of North America's Open Cable Application Platform 1.0 (OCAP 1.0) execution engine. The OCAP 2.0 spec, released in May, also covers presentation elements for Web-based applications.

The Moon2 is a dedicated hardware processor that links up with the main host processor, …