Whole-in-one 8bit microcontroller development

Edited by the Electronicstalk editorial team May 17, 2002

The CodeWarrior Development Studio for Motorola HC08 microcontrollers is a comprehensive toolsuite that delivers the capabilities required by every engineer in the development cycle.

The CodeWarrior Development Studio for Motorola HC08 microcontrollers is a comprehensive toolsuite that delivers the capabilities required by every engineer in the development cycle: from board-bring-up, to firmware development, to final application development.

CodeWarrior Development Studio for Motorola HC08 microcontrollers, Professional Edition, Version 2, is a broad-base toolsuite for 8bit application developers in a variety of markets, including automotive, consumer, and industrial.

"This tool suite demonstrates Metrowerks' commitment to providing our customers best-in-class products at an affordable price", said John Smolucha, vice president of marketing, Metrowerks.

"We've integrated the features required by embedded developers in a single IDE, eliminating the difficulties of trying to piece together different products from multiple vendors, and significantly streamlining the development process".

CodeWarrior Development Studio ships integrated with Processor Expert, a rapid application design (RAD) tool from Unis that combines easy-to-use component-based application creation with an expert knowledge system.

Used with the CodeWarrior tools, Processor Expert enables developers to graphically describe their application before the hardware is available, or even experiment with different hardware configurations to optimise the performance of their application.

"Processor Expert complements CodeWarrior with powerful, component oriented RAD tools, including intelligent management of hardware resources", said Stanislav Cerny, R and D Manager, Unis.

"Developers can now use prepartitioned embedded system representation and MCU expert knowledge system design-time feedback for modeling and maintenance of their own designs with a high level of safety and hardware/software consistency".

With the Processor Expert tool, CPU, on-chip peripherals, external peripherals, and software functionality are encapsulated into components called "embedded beans".

This allows developers to tailor each component's functionality to fit the requirements of the application by modifying the component's properties, methods, and events.

Processor Expert also reduces troubleshooting cycles by immediately flagging potential resource conflicts, allowing problems to be resolved during the initial design phase.

CodeWarrior Development Studio also includes: a build system that enables the development of applications with the smallest code size and fastest execution time; ANSI C/C++ and compact C++ compilers designed to take full advantage of the HC08 architecture; the powerful and cycle-accurate true-time simulator, which allows software development to begin before hardware is available; a project manager for configuring and managing complex projects; an edit and code navigation system for creating and modifying source code; a graphical source-level debugger with a wide array of sophisticated features for quickly troubleshooting and repairing applications; and a full-chip simulator from P and E Microcomputer Systems, built into CodeWarrior Development Studio to provide full chip simulation, in-circuit simulation, real-time debugging and Flash programming.

CodeWarrior Development Studio for Motorola HC08 Microcontrollers, Professional Edition, Version 2, is available today direct from the Metrowerks website and from Metrowerks authorised distributors.

The product is priced at US $3995 per license.

The product is also available in a Special Edition at no charge, and a Standard Edition for US $1995.

The Special Edition includes assembly tools, C compiler tools limited to 4K, and Processor Expert components for most onboard peripherals.

The Standard Edition includes the full CodeWarrior IDE with unlimited files and subprojects, assembly tools, unlimited C compiler tools, and access to 170 Processor Expert software components.

The Special Edition of CodeWarrior Development Studio for Motorola HC08 microcontrollers is available now at no charge (a saving of more than US $2000) for download from the Metrowerks website.

The tools are also available via CD-ROM from Motorola's Literature Distribution Centre.

Metrowerks is offering a special promotion for an upgrade to the full HC08 C compiler for US $495 (previously US $2000) until 22nd July 2002.