San Jose, CA. Embedded Systems Conference. November 1, 1998 -- Green Hills Software today announced the availability of its MULTI® software development environment for Motorola's M-CORE® family. The MULTI environment, which includes a source-level debugger, C/C++ compiler, assembler, linker, and instruction set simulator, is available immediately for the M200 and will be available for the M300 as soon as Motorola begins shipping the new CPU.

M-CORE is a 32-bit micro-RISC processor core optimized for portable consumer, transportation, and industrial products that require low cost and low power consumption. M-CORE is available in two versions: The M200, which operates from a 1.8V supply at 50 MHz; and the M300, which operates from a 2.0V supply at 100 MHz.

The M200 and M300 share the same internal load-store architecture, which features a four-stage pipeline, 16-bit instructions, 32-bit internal data paths, and a 32-bit general-purpose register file. The M200 and M300 also employ a 16-bit external bus, which can be used to access 8-, 16-, and 32-bit memories. Enhancements for the M300 include a high-speed, single-precision, floating point unit, 32-bit dual-instruction prefetch capability, and low-cost branch folding. The MULTI environment automates all aspects of M-CORE software development, including editing, source-level debugging, program building, execution profiling, version control, and run-time error checking. Available with C, C++, EC++, and FORTRAN optimizing compilers, MULTI also features an instruction set simulator (SimMCORE) that allows programmers to develop and test code without the need for the target hardware.

"Efficient hardware and software go hand in hand when it comes to keeping system power consumption and cost down," said Jim Thomas, vice president and director for Motorola's M-CORE Technology Center. "By maximizing code density, Green Hills' C, C++, and EC++ optimizing compilers enable designers to use less memory, a key factor in holding down power consumption and system cost."

"The software content of today's deeply embedded systems is growing at an astounding rate," said Green Hills vice president of marketing John Carbone. "As a result, development tools that increase programmer productivity and maximize code density are becoming indispensable for keeping system costs in check. MULTI gives M-CORE programmers the integrated toolkit and optimizing compilers needed to quickly create sophisticated, efficient applications that take full advantage of M-CORE's high performance, low cost and low power consumption."

MULTI provides a uniform set of capabilities for M-CORE development that spans 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 is tailor-made for embedded applications, enabling programmers to make speed and code size tradeoffs that are best suited for their application. Through switch options, programmers can select any subset of C++ they want, from bare bones C, to full-blown ANSI/ISO C++. The compiler also supports a dialect of C++ known as Embedded C++ (EC++), which is particularly well suited to resource-constrained embedded applications that require ultra small code size.

Code that has been compiled for the M-CORE architecture can run on the target hardware in a bare bones mode, under real-time operating systems like VxWorks, and under a variety of processor-specific in-circuit emulators (ICEs). MULTI also supports a variety of host/target connectivity options. Among these are custom and off-the-shelf RTOSs, in-circuit emulators, and Motorola's Picobug ROM monitor, which enables MULTI to work out-of-the-box with Motorola's M200-based evaluation boards (such as the MMCCMB1200). In addition, MULTI adheres to M-CORE’s ABI standard, which facilitates interoperability among M-CORE ABI-compliant tools from multiple vendors.

Support for the M-CORE HP Processor Probe and Motorola's EBDI (Enhanced Background Debug Interface) low cost hardware debug tool are planned for the near future. Both tools interact with the target system via M-CORE 's OnCE (on chip emulation) debug port. Green Hills also plans support for Motorola's ESL (Emulation Server Library) standard, which gives third party debuggers such as MULTI a standard interface layer to communicate with all M-CORE target systems.

Green Hills Software is headquartered in Santa Barbara, CA., and has US offices in California, Colorado, Illinois, Massachusetts, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Texas, and Florida. International headquarters are located in the United Kingdom, with offices in France, Germany, and The Netherlands. For sales information on Green Hills Software's products, please call 1-800-500-2580 or email inquiries to sales@ghs.com

Motorola is a registered trademark and DigitalDNA is a trademark of Motorola, Inc. M-CORE is a trademark of Motorola, Inc. all other tradenames, trademarks, and registered trademarks are the property of their respective owners.