San Jose, CA. Embedded Systems Conference Booth #636. September 26, 2000 -- Green Hills Software today announced the availability of the ThreadX real-time operating system and MULTI 2000 Integrated Development Environment for MIPS Technologies' MIPS32 architecture and 4Kc, 4Km, and 4Kp cores. Together, the royalty-free ThreadX RTOS and MULTI IDE provide an ideal platform for developing and deploying deeply embedded applications for target systems based on MIPS32 processors.

"The MIPS architecture has always been a key element of our embedded strategy," said John Carbone," vice president of marketing at Green Hills. "The ThreadX RTOS provides an excellent platform for deploying and hosting MIPS32 applications on resource-constrained target systems. The MULTI IDE, together with our compilers, is optimized for producing fast, compact code that takes full advantage of the MIPS32 architecture's superior mix of high performance and low power consumption."

"Easy to use integrated development environments are the key to maximizing productivity for the large programming teams that work on today's complex embedded software projects," said Brian Knowles, vice president of marketing for MIPS Technologies, Inc. "And efficient compilers and RTOSs are the key to reaping the benefits from the performance and power saving features of the MIPS32 architecture. We're happy to have Green Hills on board as one of our preferred suppliers for the MIPS32 architecture."

The MIPS32 4Kc, 4Km, and 4Kp are high-performance, synthesizeable, 32-bit RISC processor cores optimized for low-power, battery-operated, system-on-a-chip ASIC applications. Fully compatible with the MIPS32 architecture, the 4K cores support R3000 and R4000 user-level code, and are optimized for running embedded operating systems. The cores and their bus interfaces operate at speeds from 0-200 MHz, consuming just 0.5 mW/MHz when fabricated in a typical 0.18-micron process. The cores feature a five-stage pipeline with branch control and single-cycle execution for most instructions, and up to 16 kbytes each of 4-way, set-associative instruction and data cache.

The ThreadX RTOS, available from Green Hills on a royalty-free basis, is the most technically advanced real-time multitasking solution on the market today. Combining a picokernel design with fast timers and a high-speed preemption-threshold mechanism, ThreadX features a context switching time of less than two microseconds on a 40-MHz processor. The ThreadX picokernel is also memory stingy, requiring just 5 kbytes for a minimum footprint.

The MULTI 2000 IDE, together with Green Hills' family of optimizing C, C++, EC++, and Ada95 compilers, automates all aspects of embedded software development for MIPS32 cores. Available for Windows 95/98, Windows NT, and Unix host platforms, the MULTI IDE features a window-oriented editor, source-level debugger, graphical program builder, run-time error checker, version control system, performance profiler, optimizing profiler (CodeBalance™), and real-time RTOS EventAnalyzer. MULTI also features an instruction set simulator (SimMIPS) that allows programmers to develop and test code on a PC or workstation without the need for the target hardware.

ThreadX is tightly integrated with MULTI, enabling it to provide comprehensive thread- and kernel-aware debugging. The MULTI source-level debugger can start and stop tasks, and monitor OS resources like buffers, queues, and streams. It can also display multiple tasks ("threads") graphically, including the thread roster, system objects, stack usage, semaphore usage and status, and a variety of other thread- and system-specific information.

MULTI's graphical EventAnalyzer, optimized for the ThreadX RTOS, builds on the baseline capabilities of the MULTI debugger, making it easier for programmers to decipher complex real-time interactions. The EventAnalyzer operates like a high-level logic analyzer, displaying all context switches, ThreadX API calls, thread state changes and interrupts in a time-relative manner using intuitive ICONs. The EventAnalyzer is implemented using in-line macros, which minimize intrusion and make it easier to use the tool in the latter stages of product development, when timing is critical.

The MULTI 2000 IDE features the industry's most advanced MIPS32 C/C++ optimizing compiler. The scaleable C/C++ compiler lets programmers use switch options to select any subset of C++ they want, from bare bones C, to full-blown ANSI/ISO C++. The compiler also supports Embedded C++ (EC++), a dialect of C++ optimized for resource- constrained embedded applications that achieves the efficiency of C while preserving many of the best object-oriented features of C++.

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Incorporated in 1982, Green Hills Software, Inc., is a leading supplier of royalty-free real-time operating systems and software development tools for 32- and 64-bit embedded systems. Green Hills' royalty-free ThreadX® and INTEGRITY® real-time operating systems, fully integrated with its market leading compilers and MULTI® integrated development environment, provide a total development and run-time solution that addresses both deeply embedded and maximum reliability applications. Green Hills Software is headquartered in Santa Barbara, CA, with international headquarters in the United Kingdom. For more information on Green Hills Software products, please call 1-805-965-6044 or email inquiries to sales@ghs.com. http://www.ghs.com.

Green Hills Software, and MULTI are registered trademarks and INTEGRITY is a trademark of Green Hills Software, Inc. Other trademarks are trademarks (registered or otherwise) of the respective trademark owners.