Out at the Freescale Technology Forum in Orlando, Fla., Green Hills Software today announced expanded support for Freescale's processors. The software company's TimeMachine debugger now works with Freescale processors that lack on-chip trace functionality, a previous limitation. And its micro-velOSity RTOS has been extended to run on all Freescale processors, offering 100% upward-compatible API with Green Hills' other RTOSes, velOSity and Integrity. "We're offering one RTOS family you can migrate within," says Robert Redfield, director of partner business development at Green Hills.
When Green Hills introduced TimeMachine 18 months ago, the debugging tool worked only with Freescale processors that featured on-chip trace pins. Now that limitation has been removed, allowing the TimeMachine to work with Freescale's PowerQuicc family of processors. There is a price, however. Developers will need to add tracing via either an in-memory data transfer or a PCI or other bus; either will involve some overhead, Redfield says.
The micro-velOSity expansion means the royalty-free, small-footprint RTOS now work on additional Freescale processor families, including the MPC555x, MPC85xx, ColdFire MCF54xx, i.MX31 and MAC71xx. Perhaps more important, Green Hills says that APIs and common components (including Ethernet stacks, PCI, and IPsec) are 100% compatible across its three RTOS families. This could appeal to Freescale customers, such as Otis Elevator, that use a wide range of processors on devices that range from simple to complex.
Bolstering the announcements, Green Hills points to a 2005 survey of more than 500 device engineers and managers, conducted by CMP Media (parent company of DSO.com). When asked, "When choosing a processor, what is important?" more than 70% of the respondents answered "software tools." It was far and away the most popular response, outdrawing even hardware price and performance.
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