TASKING Tool Suites to Provide Support for StarCore SC140 and SC110 DSP Cores from Motorola and Lucent TechnologiesMulticore Compiler and Debugger to Ramp up the Resources
and Boost Efficiency of Developers in Embedded Communications Market
Dedham, MA, September 25, 2000 — TASKING, The
Embedded Communications Company, announced today its
decision to support the StarCore SC100 DSP core technology from
Lucent Technologies and Motorola, an architecture designed to
provide developers of next-generation communication and networking
infrastructure and clients a strategic advantage in overall
application efficiency. To maximize the sophistication of the
StarCore SC100, an industry leader in code density, performance and
power consumption, TASKING will optimize its compiler with unique
DSP-specific extensions and deliver a multicore debug solution
supporting multicore and multiprocessor applications for both
homogenous and heterogeneous systems. Thanks to many years of DSP-specific
experience, TASKING is confident that it will provide a solution
that will maximize StarCore's high-performance, networking
capabilities, compiler efficiency, flexibility and power efficiency
— all characteristics which strategically position the SC140 and
SC100 cores for next-generation and networking infrastructure and
clients. The TASKING SC100 Tool Suite will offer a
complete software development environment that enables developers to
take advantage of the StarCore SC100's versatility to help meet
time-to-market demands. Consisting of a powerful IDE, C/C++
compiler, assembler, linker/locator, and debugger, the tool suite
will provide all the capabilities needed for application development
from project management, editing, and program building to compiling,
optimizing, and debugging. Redesigned for the high performance, low
power SC100 architecture, the compiler is as scalable as the
underlying SC100 architecture itself, supporting SoC and ASIC
implementations, VLIW instruction-sets and parallel-processing
units. At the debugging level, TASKING's CrossView Pro debugger will
offer both basic and advanced multicore debugging, program profiling
and graphical data analysis. "By supporting the StarCore SC140 and
SC110 cores, we extend our position at the forefront of DSP
technology and offer our large and growing installed base of
Motorola DSP56xxx customers a migration path as they move
forward," notes Scott Taitel, TASKING's President and COO. "Many
of our DSP56xxx customers are considering migrating future
development to StarCore. We will continue to work with Motorola to
define that path." With initial core silicon sampled in December
1999, the StarCore SC140 DSP core (1200 MMAC/3000 RISC MIPS at 300
MHz) enables overall application efficiency in markets such as
2.5/3G data-centric wireless handsets, wireless and wireline
infrastructure equipment and Internet telephony gateways. The
StarCore SC110 DSP Core was announced on September 18, 2000 to
address cost-sensitive communications and consumer applications,
such as Internet applicances, voice-centric wireless phones, digital
audio and advanced automotive electronics. The one MAC SC110 core
offers extremely low-peak power numbers of 103 mW at 1.5 V or only
15 mW at 0.9 V. "We are pleased that TASKING has joined
the growing list of StarCore SC100 third-party vendors,"
says Allen Hyman, Senior Strategic Marketing Manager for the
StarCore Technology Center. "TASKING's robust embedded
development environment and CrossView Pro debugger is designed to
help customers get products to market fast, which should benefit
both Lucent Technologies and Motorola as the two companies market
their SC100-based SoC solutions." Based on feedback from its large DSP customer
base, TASKING has commited itself to DSP-specific optimizations and
developments. In addition to offering powerful proprietary DSP-C
language extensions such as fixed-point data types and circular
buffers, the compiler boasts an impressive list of optimization
techniques, including leaf-function handling, register caching, loop
unrolling, unroll-and-jam, peep-hole optimizations, instruction
mutation, predication-sensitive register allocation, and software
pipelining using iterated modulo scheduling. Recognizing that only
90% of a DSP application is written in C/C++, TASKING will deliver
an optimized assembler, complete with an assembly feature allowing
pseudo registers and C variables. The compiler, which generates
minimal overhead while mixing C and assembly, supports
user-specifiable calling conventions that call legacy assembly
functions from C code. Knowing that high-performance, multicore
solutions introduce a new level of difficulty into the debugging
process, TASKING's CrossView Pro debugger support of StarCore will
provide execution control of individual processors and processor
combinations. By providing the ability to test interprocessor
communications, developers are able to understand system behavior
and use trace analysis or seek out ways to boost performance.
TASKING's debugger will handle cross-processor breakpoints in the
hardware and manage differences in on-chip debugging support in the
data communications link, execution control, data access, trace
facilities and core architectures that make up a multicore,
multiprocessor solution. In heterogeneous systems, CrossView Pro
will integrate previously separate debuggers into one system to
offer execution control of processor combinations and by providing,
for example, scripting across debuggers. "The TASKING SC100 Tool Suite
demonstrates the strong relationship we have with our DSP
customers," notes Taitel. "Our customers have told
us what they need to develop high-performance DSP solutions.
Clearly, the tool suite we will deliver includes enough advanced
functionality and resources to meet the most demanding multichannel
communications applications, whether that be for infrastructure
equipment in high-speed networks or third-generation cellular base
stations." "StarCore technology offers a powerful
combination of high-speed and low-power for the high-end DSP
market," says Will Strauss, President of Forward Concepts. "With
over a decade of DSP experience and a sizeable Motorola DSP56xxx and
Infineon CARMEL licensed base, TASKING brings a lot of DSP knowledge
to the table, a necessary component when you're dealing with such a
high-performance core." Components of the TASKING SC100 DSP Tool Suite
will be available by Q2 2001.
About TASKING
TASKING, the Embedded Communications Company, brings together the
software technology needed to compete in the embedded communications
era. TASKING's award-winning integrated development environment,
compiler, debugger, embedded Internet and RTOS offerings support a
wide range of DSPs and 8-, 16- and 32-bit microprocessors and
microcontrollers for all areas of embedded communications. TASKING,
founded in 1974, is a privately held company with headquarters in
Dedham, Massachusetts, and engineering, sales and support offices in
California, The Netherlands, Germany, Italy, Japan and the UK.
TASKING's 100,000 licensed users include the world's leading
telecom, datacom, wireless and peripheral manufacturers. More
information about TASKING can be found at www.tasking.com and www.embeddedcommunications.com. TASKING, the TASKING logo, The
Embedded Communications Company are trademarks of TASKING. All other
trademarks and logos are trademarks or registered trademarks of
their respective owners.
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