A micro-component architecture approach for next generation embedded browsers

The mobile Internet adds the new multi-media features and takes a convergence to the wired Internet. The emerging diversity of the content languages adds a new challenge as well as the sustained challenge from the diversity of the execution environments. The author describes the mobile Internet evolution from the browser viewpoint in the three-stage model. After describing the focus shift during this evolution, the author discusses the architecture need to leverage the combination of the multimedia processing components in multiple applications in a resource-constraint environment. This leads to the new architecture demand to cope with the diversity of the content languages as well as the resource restrictions in the embedded client environment. The author proposes a micro-component architecture to enable browsers to act as a toolkit to construct a wide range of application clients on a mobile handset with optimal footprint. A case study in SVG case is shown to evaluate the effect of the proposed micro-component architecture approach.