MIPS: MIPS Technologies, Inc. announces integrated toolset initiative
M2 Communications
Mar 10, 11:43 Mars time
MAR 10, 1999, M2 Communications - MIPS Technologies, Inc. (NASDAQ: today announced a new initiative that will yield a unified framework for MIPS RISC processor development tools. The new MIPS RISC Integrated Development Framework, or MIPS IDF, will accelerate the development of advanced tool chains for the MIPS RISC platform and enable developers to cut NRE or non- reoccurring engineering costs and speed development. The new framework will allow any IDF compatible tool to be integrated with any other IDF tool anywhere in the development tool chain. MIPS Technologies will work with leading development tool vendors to create and maintain the interface standards, or Application Program Interfaces (APIs), that will define the framework.
The new framework and APIs will dramatically cut the time and effort currently required by embedded systems developers to access and integrate tools from different vendors. At the same time, it will greatly simplify the tasks faced by the development tool vendor and enable them to provide their advanced tools to the market faster. "The goal of this new framework is to provide for the first time, a 'plug-and-play' structure to support all development tools for the MIPS RISC processor family," states Gideon Intrater, MIPS Technologies, Inc. Director of Product Marketing. "It solves the problems of the customer in accessing advanced tools, and it simplifies the tasks faced by the tool vendors in producing them. It creates a 'win-win' situation for the high performance 32- bit and 64-bit MIPS RISC processor industry."
In today's high performance embedded systems environment, the developer is confronted with development tasks that are much more complex than those faced in the past. Systems are much faster, provide far more features, usually operate in real-time, often provide a high-speed communications functions, and yet because of portability and power requirements must function within severe physical space and memory limitations.
Another problem is that new systems must be developed rapidly and at low cost to meet changing market dynamics. To meet those ambitious goals, embedded system developers need advanced development tools throughout the entire development cycle. Tools such as integrated development environments (IDEs), optimised compilers, debuggers, real-time operating systems, on-board target monitors, performance analysers, in- circuit emulators, on-chip debuggers and many more are being used today to solve thorny development problems. The MIPS RISC architecture has over 60 tool vendors providing powerful development and debug tools for the MIPS RISC platform. But the task facing the embedded system developer is daunting. Mixing and matching tools from different suppliers is difficult because each vendor will typically use their own interface standard. On the other hand, tool vendors face an equally daunting problem. In order to sell their specialised tools, they must ensure that those tools connect smoothly to a wide variety of non-standard development environments. Achieving critical mass in the market is a time consuming and detail-intensive process that detract them from their main objective - improving the quality and performance of their development tools.
"MIPS Technologies, Inc. is solving both problems," says Greg Stoner, Manager of the applications group at MIPS Technologies, Inc. "We already provide the architectural framework for the MIPS RISC processor architecture. Now we are extending our leadership role by providing the architectural framework for the supporting toolset infrastructure. We are defining a complete framework that incorporates tools at every stage of the development cycle. In addition, we are defining the interfaces between each level in the tools hierarchy so that individual tool vendors can be assured that their tools will intemperate with any other tool in the hierarchy - without further development work on their part." MIPS Technologies, Inc. is currently working with a number of development tool vendors to ensure that the Integrated Development Framework is consistent with both existing technologies and emerging development tool technologies. "Cygnus applauds this interface initiative being led by MIPS Technologies," said Paul Salazar, Director of GNUPro marketing at Cygnus. "With the efforts to make software development tools inter operate, not only are the open source GNUPro compilers and debuggers more accessible, but the embedded software developer has consistent access to a range of development technologies."
"We applaud MIPS Technologies, Inc. for taking this step," adds John Carbone Vice President of Marketing at Green Hills Software. "This brings a new level of standardisation and order to the MIPS RISC development process. Now we can continue to focus our efforts on developing high quality tools and spend less resources on interfacing tasks." "MIPS Technologies has been early to realise that a key to the success of developing complex embedded systems is co-simulation support. Being responsive to customer requirements has made Synopsys number one in co-simulation. The Integrated Development Framework meets the important requirement of earliest tool support for existing and future MIPS-based devices," states Mike Stanbro, R&D manager for the Eagle Technology Group at Synopsys.
"MIPS Technologies is driving an important standardisation effort for MIPS processor architectures across semiconductor partners and other MIPS licensees," said Greg Galanos, President and Chief Technology Officer of Metrowerks. "Given the modem, open architecture of the CodeWarrior tool chain for MIPS processors, and the CodeWarrior Integrated Development Environment, we are clearly working closely with MIPS Technologies to ensure strong compatibility between Metrowerks' plug-in APIs and their IDF goals and objectives."
"Wind River is very encouraged by this new initiative," added Dave Sheaffer, Director of Semiconductor Relations for Wind River Systems. "We intend to work closely with MIPS Technologies to promote standardisation within the MIPS community." "Express Logic is pleased to participate in this initiative," says William. E. Lamie, President of Express Logic. "Our flagship product ThreadX is already shortening the time- to-market of many MIPS designs and the MIPS IDF is going to make development even better!"
"Accelerated Technology is excited to participate in this new initiative which will further optimise the popular MIPS RISC sector of the embedded systems industry. ATI's wide support for the MIPS platform only continues to strengthen our relationship with both MIPS Technologies and our position in the popular MIPS industry," said Michelle Anderson, Vice President of Marketing at Accelerated Technology, Inc. "This is a step that is long overdue and will benefit both the tool supplier as well as the developer. The ability to bring the latest tool technology to market in a timely manner will be greatly enhance& states Mike Winters Vice President of Sales and Marketing of Corelis Inc. "The introduction of newer, faster, more capable tools will now be possible and will result in MIPS based designs being brought to market faster." "In our estimation, MIPS Technologies is taking exactly the right approach to creating a development solution that is both standardised and comprehensive. With 20 years experience in helping our customers integrate software and hardware-enhanced embedded development tools, we are very aware of the importance of this type of initiative," said Douglas Fullaway, Executive Vice President of Applied Microsystems Corporation (NASDAQ:
MIPS Technologies, Inc. has been driving the development of high performance CPU's that have been used in a wide variety of embedded products. MIPS RISC-based processor technology is available in standard products, custom ASICs, and flexible synthesisable "drop-in" processor cores from a variety of MIPS licensees and MIPS Technologies, Inc. With the new MIPS RISC Integrated Development Framework, MIPS Technologies, Inc. will ensure that advanced development tool technology is equally available for the MIPS RISC industry. It will extend the MIPS RISC architecture's position as the most widely available and supported 32- and 64-bit RISC architecture.
About MIPS Technologies, Inc.
MIPS Technologies, Inc. is the world's primary architect of embedded 32- and 64-bit RISC processors. The company drives the broadest architectural alliance that is delivering 32- and 64-bit embedded RISC solutions. It offers the only embedded 64-bit RISC architecture for emerging digital consumer, network systems, and information management applications. The company licenses its intellectual property to semiconductor manufacturing companies, ASIC developers, and system OEMs. MIPS Technologies, Inc. and its licensees offer the widest range of robust, scalable processors in standard, custom, semi-custom and application-specific products. Developers can choose from a broad menu of price/performance options that include execution units, clock speeds, instruction widths (16-, 32- or 64-bit), cache sizes, memory bandwidths, memory protection schemes, system interfaces, and on-chip system logic.
Licensees currently include: Broadcom Corporation; CommQuest (IBM); Integrated Device Technology, Inc. (IDT); LSI Logic Corporation; Macronix; NEC Corporation; NKK Corporation; Philips Semiconductors; Quantum Effect Design, Inc. (QED); Sony Corporation; Synova; and Toshiba Corporation. Numerous companies utilise MIPS intellectual property. MIPS Technologies, Inc. is based in Mountain View, California, and can be reached at +1 650-567-5000 or
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