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"We are very happy to have Green Hills on board with the ARM architecture", said Rod Crawford, director of 3rd party software products at ARM. "Integrated Development Environments like MULTI are proving key to the development of the sophisticated programs that run on high-performance ARM microprocessors. And, advanced optimizing compilers like those available from Green Hills are essential for holding memory costs down while harnessing the full processing power of the ARM core."

MULTI provides a uniform set of capabilities for ARM software development that span Windows 95, Windows NT, and Unix host platforms. Moreover, MULTI’s program builder, editor, and debugger are tightly integrated to offer quick, convenient single- and double-click transfers between debug mode and full source editing. For example, simply clicking on a compiler error message brings the user to the editor, opens the file containing the error, moves the cursor to the line containing the error, and highlights the error.

Green Hills’ 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 16-bit Thumb® architecture extensions, which enables 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, the MULTI Development Environment provides a run-time execution profiler. 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.

"The net result," remarked Green Hills Vice President of Marketing John Carbone, "is code that executes as fast as code produced by a pure 32-bit processor, while occupying a fraction of the space." ôIn the benchmarks we've done," added Carbone, "applications compiled using a mixture of 32-bit and 16-bit instructions typically realize a 65% reduction in code size relative to straight 32-bit implementations with little degradation in execution speed. This reduction in code size can result in significant memory savings, which is critical to designers working on embedded projects with tight cost constraints."

Code that has been compiled for the ARM processor can run on the target hardware in a bare bones mode, under real-time operating systems like VxWorks and Green Hills' own Integrity and velOSity, and under a variety of processor-specific in-circuit emulators (ICEs). MULTI also supports a variety of host/target connectivity options, including ROM monitors (using the Angel protocol), custom and off-the-shelf RTOSs, and in-circuit emulators like VLSI Technology's BlackICE.

For pricing information contact sales@ghs.com.

More on Green Hills

Incorporated in 1982, Green Hills Software, Inc., is a leading supplier of software development tools for 32- and 64-bit embedded systems. Green Hills offers a family of optimizing Ada, C, C++, FORTRAN and Pascal compilers. The company also offers a software development environment known as MULTI that automates the compile-edit-build-debug cycle by integrating advanced facilities such as an RTOS-aware source-level debugger, profiler, program builder and source code control system.

Green Hills' tools support all major advanced microprocessor families and target environments, including instruction set simulators, ROM Monitors, commercial and home grown real-time operating systems (RTOS) and in-circuit emulators (ICE).

Green Hills Software is headquartered in Santa Barbara, CA., and has offices in Lexington, MA., Raleigh, N.C., King of Prussia, PA, Chicago, IL, Dallas, TX, Palm Harbor, FL., Denver, CO, Scotts Valley, CA, Cupertino, CA, San Clemente, CA, Los Angeles, CA, Kent, U.K., Amsterdam, Netherlands, Munich, Germany and Paris, France. For sales information on Green Hills Software's products, please call 1-800-500-2580 or email inquiries to sales@ghs.com.