Santa Barbara, CA. December 18, 2000 - Green Hills Software today announced that its MULTI IDE and the ThreadX® Real-Time Operating System (RTOS) have been selected by ATL Ultrasound to develop software for a next-generation broadband digital beam former that yields clearer ultrasound resolutions. Application software developed using MULTI will run on Intel i960 and Motorola PowerPC processors under the ThreadX RTOS.

Ultrasound is a noninvasive procedure that uses high frequency sound waves to image the body's soft tissue, organs and blood flow in real time. Highly cost-effective, Ultrasound can eliminate the need for more invasive and expensive procedures. Ultrasound can be used to evaluate the repair of a vessel wall in surgery, check on the success of an organ transplant or evaluate the need for an appendectomy and potentially avoid an unnecessary operation. Broadband digital beam forming improves the resolution and clarity of the ultrasound with true digital time-delay captures that preserve the entire tissue bandwidth.

"We are extremely pleased that ATL Ultrasound has selected the ThreadX RTOS and MULTI IDE for its broadband digital beam former," said John Carbone, vice president of marketing at Green Hills Software. "MULTI and ThreadX provide the most advanced, comprehensive embedded software development and run-time solution on the market today."

"Green Hills' MULTI IDE and the ThreadX RTOS make a great combination," said Jack Richbourg, senior software engineering manager at ATL Ultrasound. "MULTI provides turnkey development support for multiple processor platforms such as the Intel i960 and Motorola PowerPC processors, and ThreadX provides us with a superior multitasking solution that's royalty free to boot. Green Hills' knowledgeable, responsive support team has also been a cut above the rest, enabling us to solve our development problems quickly."

Green Hills' MULTI® IDE automates all aspects of embedded software development and optimization for i960 and PowerPC processors. The MULTI tool chain features a family of optimizing compilers, window-oriented text editor, RTOS-aware source-level debugger, instruction set simulator, performance profiler, project builder, run-time error checker, graphical browser, and version control system.

Green Hills® optimizing compilers, available for C, C++, Embedded C++, Ada 95 and FORTRAN programming languages, support all major 32-bit and 64-bit advanced microprocessor families, including those from Intel, Motorola, ARM, MIPS Technologies, Hitachi, NEC, and Infineon. In May of this year, Green Hills' compilers took top honors in the first test results released by the EDN Embedded Microprocessor Benchmark Consortium (EEMBC).

The ThreadX RTOS 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 PowerPC 860 processor. The ThreadX picokernel is also memory stingy, requiring just 5 kbytes for a minimum footprint.

ThreadX support is integrated directly into MULTI, enabling it to provide comprehensive task- and kernel-aware debugging. The new ThreadX-aware MULTI IDE can 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. This capability enables embedded developers to identify thread-specific bugs by setting either system- or thread-specific breakpoints.

More On ATL Ultrasound

ATL Ultrasound is a worldwide leader in the manufacturing, distribution and service of diagnostic medical ultrasound systems. ATL Ultrasound is a part of Philips Medical Systems, a leading supplier of diagnostic imaging systems and related services worldwide that employs more than 11,000 people in more than 100 countries. Royal Philips Electronics of the Netherlands, one of the world's largest and most innovative electronics companies, acquired ATL in 1998. For more information on ATL Ultrasound products, please call 1-800-982-2011. http://www.atl.com.

More On Green Hills Software

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 INTEGRITY® and the ThreadX® 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.