Green Hills Software, Inc. announces a new Integrated Development Environment (IDE) optimized for embedded systems applications with tight memory constraints and hard real-time performance requirements. The new IDE, which combines Green Hills’ MULTI® software development tools with Express Logic’s royalty-free ThreadX® real-time operating system, will be sold and supported exclusively by Green Hills Software.

The MULTI/ThreadX IDE is the first royalty-free IDE and run-time environment to be sold and supported by a single vendor," said John Carbone, vice president of marketing at Green Hills Software. "With the MULTI/ThreadX IDE, we have pre-integrated the compiler, debugger, RTOS, and host connectivity software, thereby freeing designers to focus on their core competency, writing applications."

"Together," added John Carbone, "MULTI and ThreadX provide the most advanced, comprehensive embedded software development and run-time solution on the market today. Finally, designers can purchase an IDE from a single vendor that not only automates the software development process, but provides an integrated, royalty-free target run-time environment that is optimized for applications with ultra-tight memory and hard real-time performance constraints."

The MULTI Integrated Development Environment, which includes Green Hills’ C, C++, and EC++ optimizing compilers, automates all aspects of embedded software development, including editing, debugging, program building, execution profiling, error checking, and source code control. Featuring a kernel-aware source-level debugger that provides unique insight into ThreadX operation on the target system, MULTI also provides a simulator that enables users to develop and execute target code on the host without having access to the target hardware.

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.

The MULTI GUI includes ten new ThreadX-specific windows not available with other development environments, which greatly simplify the analysis and debugging of sophisticated programs. Kernel objects, for example, can be displayed easily with a simple double click of the mouse. View windows, similarly, can be stacked for simultaneous display of multiple objects and variables.

"MULTI and ThreadX are not just bundled together for one-stop-shopping convenience," remarked William Lamie, president of Express Logic. "The two products are tightly integrated to facilitate the quick development of optimal ThreadX target code. To that end, MULTI is not only fully aware of core ThreadX constructs, but provides an intuitive ThreadX kernel-aware GUI that makes it easy for programmers to take full advantage of these constructs."

MULTI and ThreadX are available from Green Hills Software for a wide range of 32-bit microprocessors used in embedded development, including the PowerPC 821/860, 750, CPU32, ColdFire, MIPS, SH, 68K, ARM7TDMI, and StrongARM processor families. Green Hills also plans to support a variety of other 32-bit and 64-bit processors in the near future, including the Motorola M-CORE, NEC V800 and Siemens TriCore families. Host/target connectivity options include a wide variety of BDM and JTAG OCD (On-Chip Debugging) solutions, EST’s visionICE, HP’s Processor Probe, ARM’s EmbeddedICE, and various ROM Monitors.

About Express Logic and ThreadX

Express Logic's ThreadX provides real-time embedded developers with the most technically advanced multitasking solution on the market today. Its picokernel design results in very high performance with extremely small memory requirements. ThreadX also provides embedded developers with significant technical innovations, including extremely fast software timers and a preemption-threshold mechanism that helps reduce context switching. Express Logic licenses ThreadX on a product-line basis, including source-code and without any run-time royalties. For more information, please contact Express Logic at 1-888-THREADX or visit their web site at http://www.expresslogic.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 C, C++, Embedded C++, Ada 95, FORTRAN and Pascal compilers. The company’s unique MULTI software development environment automates the compile-edit-build-debug cycle by integrating advanced facilities such as an RTOS-aware source-level debugger, performance profiler, program builder and version control system.

Green Hills Software's tools support all major 32-bit and 64-bit 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 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 1-805-965-6044 or email inquiries to sales@ghs.com.