Support package takes on latest PowerPCs

Edited by the Electronicstalk editorial team Oct 25, 2002

Metrowerks has revealed plans to ship CodeWarrior development tools for the MPC5500 product family, Motorola's next generation of products compliant with the PowerPC instruction set.

Metrowerks has revealed plans to ship CodeWarrior development tools for the MPC5500 product family, Motorola's next generation of products compliant with the PowerPC instruction set.

Metrowerks' CodeWarrior Development Studio for MPC5500, expected to be available in April 2003, offers the industry's first tightly integrated tool suite for the MPC5500 family of 32bit embedded microcontrollers, and contains advanced tools from several of the industry's leading vendors.

The product includes a GUI tool for system initialisation, a highly optimised C compiler for the core and the enhanced time processing unit (eTPU), an advanced multicore simulator, a powerful multicore debugger, analysis tools (trace and profiler), data visualisation tools, Nexus support, Flash programming support, and the Metrowerks OSEK turbo real-time operating system (RTOS).

In addition, Metrowerks will offer a broad portfolio of low-level driver software that provides an established software base to develop control functionality and timing systems to help ease development processes for OEMs.

"With the next generation of the MPC5500 family, we have placed significant focus on ensuring that industry leading tools are available to help simplify and speed system design", said Franz Fink, general manager, Motorola 32bit Embedded Controller Division.

"Metrowerks is delivering the first and most comprehensive suite of hardware and software development tools for the MPC5500 family, allowing us to help shorten our customers' development cycles".

The MPC5500 devices are designed to offer system performance of up to five times higher than its predecessors, even more embedded Flash memory, enhanced timing mechanisms, and a superior peripheral set.

"Interoperability is a huge issue for the transportation industry, as companies that cannot adapt will be quickly outpaced", said Jim Welch, president and CEO, Metrowerks.

"With the ability to interoperate with a wide range of tools and systems required to support modern software development processes, Metrowerks, along with key industry partners, is the leading choice for complex embedded systems development".

Metrowerks plans to provide a migration path to the MPC5500 family for users of the popular MPC500 family.

Metrowerks has also set up relationships with two leading vendors of embedded development platforms based on the PowerPC instruction set.

As part of Metrowerks' extensive support of key embedded platforms, CodeWarrior development tools can now be used as part of an MPC5xx development system using development platforms from Lauterbach Datentechnik, a key industry supplier of hardware and debug platforms.

Beginning January 2003, Metrowerks plans to distribute embedded emulation systems based on the PowerPC instruction set on behalf of Ashling Microsystems.

As part of the agreement, CodeWarrior tools will include a Nexus interface capability, which extends the interoperability of the development environment.

The Nexus 5001 Forum Standard is an open industry standard that provides a general-purpose interface for software development and debug of embedded processors.

The previous lack of a unified standard debug interface among the embedded processors on the market today has prevented software vendors from developing tools that can be used consistently across a broad range of processors.

Adoption of the standard is expected to greatly improve the development, debug, qualification and tuning of embedded controller applications and benefit customers' choice and reuse of their 5001 compliant development tools on compliant processor architectures from different manufacturers.