Santa Barbara, CA. March 7, 2001 -- Green Hills Software today announced the availability of the MULTI® 2000 Integrated Development Environment, ThreadX® real-time operating system (RTOS) and InterNiche Internet connectivity products for Cirrus Logic's Crystal CS89712 32-bit RISC communications processor and development board. Green Hills Software will license the MULTI IDE, ThreadX RTOS, and InterNiche connectivity products on a royalty-free basis. The products provide an out-of-the box development and target solution for the Crystal CS89712 processor and come bundled with Cirrus Logic's CS89712 development board.

"MULTI and ThreadX, together with InterNiche's networking products, provide the industry's most advanced royalty-free development and run-time solution for deeply embedded communications applications," said John Carbone, vice president of marketing at Green Hills Software. "All three products can be purchased as a bundled solution from Green Hills, and are featured on the new Cirrus Logic CD."

"The MULTI IDE, ThreadX RTOS, and InterNiche networking products provide an excellent platform for developing and deploying CS89712-based communications systems in a timely fashion at a reasonable cost," added Jeff Luftig, product marketing manager for communications products at Cirrus Logic. "ThreadX gives us a small kernel that can easily fit within the 48 Kbytes of SRAM provided on our development board, MULTI gives our OEMs an easy-to-use development environment, and the InterNiche suite provides an out-of-the-box solution for adding web connectivity—all royalty free."

The Crystal CS89712 is a 32-bit RISC processor designed for ultra-low-power communication applications such as VOIP telephones, industrial control, data acquisition, special purpose servers and RF-to-Ethernet bridges. Based on the ARM720T core, the CS89712 features an integrated 64-entry MMU, 8 kbytes of four-way, set-associative cache, and on-chip 10-Mbps Ethernet MAC and PHY interfaces.

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 the Crystal CS89712. 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 (ARMSim) that allows programmers to develop and test code on a PC or workstation without the need for the target hardware.

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.

InterNiche's full line of Internet connectivity products, also available from Green Hills on a royalty-free basis, make it easy to add web connectivity to CS89712-based communications systems. Utilized by leading computer, telecom, industrial, and consumer electronics companies worldwide, InterNiche's products include a TCP/IP protocol stack, web server (WebPort), World Wide Web browser (NicheView) servers for POP3 email, TELNET, DHCP and FTP, routing protocols (NATrouter and PPP), and SNMP network management software.

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 ARM 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++.

Green Hills C/C++ compiler takes full advantage of the Crystal CS89712's 16-bit Thumb® architecture extensions, which enable designers to achieve significant reductions in code size without compromising performance. To help embedded systems programmers maximize performance and efficiency and make size/speed tradeoffs, MULTI 2000 provides a run-time execution profiler known as CodeBalance. The profiler lets users see the code size and run time for each function as compiled using 16- or 32-bit instructions. Then, based on user-supplied size and speed constraints, the profiler outputs a set of command line directives to the compiler that specify how the source code should be partitioned into 16- and 32-bit segments to achieve the desired result.

MULTI supports a variety of host/target connectivity and debug options, including ARM's EmbeddedICE, Multi-ICE and Angel ROM Monitor, HP's Emulator Probe, and Macraigor's OCDemon.

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 solutions include the royalty-free ThreadX® real-time operating system, fully integrated with its market leading compilers and MULTI® Integrated Development Environment, and 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 European 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.