Last year Ford used a rigorous evaluation process to become the first major embedded processor user to select the Motorola PowerPC architecture for its next generation control microprocessor. After an equally thorough year-long evaluation of all leading embedded software development environments Ford chose Green Hills' MULTI as its development toolset to take it into the next century.

"A key factor in our decision to select Green Hills was their ability to develop a complete PowerPC solution quickly with a very high standard of excellence," said Jack Patteeuw, technical specialist for software tools for automotive electronics at Ford.

Under the terms of the agreement, Green Hills will develop optimizing compilers for the PowerPC and will integrate them with its MULTI development environment. The MULTI environment includes all the tools needed by a workgroup for a major programming project, including source level debugger, source code control, run time error checking, memory leak detection, execution profiler, graphical browser, application builder, macro assembler, librarian, linker and run-time libraries.

Green Hills will provide Ford with initial versions of the PowerPC tools by March 1, 1994. Final versions are scheduled for delivery by June 1, 1994.

"Ford's selection of Green Hills for software development tools for their next generation of products is a major endorsement of MULTI as the new industry standard for embedded development," said Dan O'Dowd, president of Green Hills. "We've started to see a trend: embedded programs have become so complex that only a comprehensive software development environment can significantly reduce time to market."

For sales information on Green Hills Software's products, please call 1-805-965-6044 or email inquiries to sales@ghs.com.