TASKING's Support of STMicroelectronics Super10 Microcontroller Seals Disk Controller Deal

Quantum Chooses Super10 and TASKING Tool Suite for Disk Storage Design

Dedham, MA, January 25, 2001 — TASKING, The Embedded Communications Company, today announced that TASKING's tool suite support for STMicroelectronics' Super10 microcontroller has been selected by Quantum Corporation for a new, high-performance Super10-based disk drive in development. TASKING's latest release of the tool suite, complete with upgraded EDE, optimized C and C++/EC++ compilers, CrossView Pro debugger and on-chip debug support, also includes integrated DSP instructions that take advantage of the Super10's DSP-MCU core. As the next-generation member of the ST10 family, the Super10 brings a significant gain in performance, more than doubling the clock speed, while executing most instructions during a single clock cycle plus providing DSP instructions optimized for real-time control applications. With TASKING's ST10 Tool Suite able to maximize the Super10's DSP capabilities, Quantum will achieve the advanced interrupt handling with fast context switching so critical to disk-drive applications.

Using the TASKING tool suite and the Nohau Super10 emulator, Quantum gains a complete development tools solution, covering all phases of the development process from hardware programming through application development. The ST10 Tool Suite introduces a higher-performance EDE, complete with a faster, more efficient C/C++ compiler and enhanced error checking for Safer C. The Nohau EMUL-Super10-PC In-Circuit Emulator offers up to 100-MHz real-time operation, unlimited software and 40 hardware breakpoints and trace memory and triggers that can be configured and viewed without intrusion into real-time emulation. The capabilities of the TASKING tool suite and Nohau emulator, coupled with the Super10's superior performance, offers Quantum a development solution that is second to none.

"Today's hard-disk drive market demands superlative performance," notes Pete Whitney, Manager of Quantum's Software Development Group. "Using the Super10 core and TASKING's tool suite, we can support the higher frequency of interrupts required by new concepts such as two-stage head positioning servos, where fine tracking is performed using a microactuator on the head suspension. This level of performance will help Quantum maintain its time-to-market leadership in the disk-drive sector."

"TASKING's extensive DSP experience is a tremendous complement to the core architectural strengths that this new Super10 delivers," states Ferenc Kovacs, Manager of ST10/Super10 IP core marketing for STMicroelectronics. "The Super10 core primarily targets control applications in hard disk drives, automotive and consumer where DSP algorithms are needed to achieve the required performance."

"Quantum's choice of the Super10 and TASKING's tool suite extends our position in the disk drive market, where we already have a significant stronghold," notes Brian Mulcahey, TASKING's Vice President of Worldwide Corporate Marketing. "As we survey the embedded communications market, clearly disk drive technology plays a significant role. Quantum's selection of our solution serves as a ringing endorsement of TASKING's superior tools technology."

To reduce time-to-market, the ST10 Tool Suite enables managers to organize large, complex projects through new grouping functions and management tools. Geared to support all available ST10 architectures, including next-generation extended architectures like the Super10, recent benchmarks show that the TASKING ST10 tools are smallest in code size and fastest in run-time speed, thanks to the latest C/C++ compiler optimizations. As well, floating-point libraries now come with dramatically improved single- and double-precision float calculations.

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.

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