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Product category: Design and Development Software
News Release from: Green Hills Software | Subject: Multi 2000 and Probe for MSC8102
Edited by the Electronicstalk Editorial Team on 15 January 2003

Tools get to work
on multicore DSP systems

New versions of the Multi 2000 integrated development environment and high-speed Green Hills Probe support the StarCore-based MSC8102, Motorola's highest performance DSP to date

Green Hills Software has released the Multi 2000 integrated development environment and high-speed Green Hills Probe for the StarCore-based MSC8102 digital signal processor, Motorola's highest performance DSP. The new IDE, featuring C and C++ optimising compilers and a multicore debugger, provides a DSP-optimised superset of Multi's powerful editing, debugging, profiling, and project management capabilities.

The MSC8102 combines four StarCore SC140 cores running at speeds up to 300MHz with four enhanced filter coprocessors (EFCOPs), delivering a peak performance of 6000 million multiply accumulates per second (MMACs).

This high performance level, coupled with the MSC8102's large on-chip memory (1436Kbyte), four high-speed TDM interfaces, 16-channel DMA, and high performance system and peripheral bus interface, make it ideal for a wide range of compute-intensive telecommunications applications.

The Multi 2000 IDE automates all aspects of software development for the MSC8102.

Optimised for the MSC8102's SC140 core architecture, the Multi IDE features a window-oriented editor, RTOS-aware, multicore source-level debugger, graphical program builder, run-time error checker, version control system, and performance profiler.

Multi also supports Motorola's StarCore instruction set simulator and multicore cycle-accurate simulator, which enable programmers to develop and test MSC8102 code on a PC or workstation without the need for the target hardware.

The Multi debugger, which supports incremental debugging, provides a separate window for each SC140 core and process, supports mixed assembly and high-level language formats, and includes a language-sensitive expression evaluator.

Using Multi, MSC8102 programmers can simultaneously view all MSC8102 registers and debug all four SC140 cores, independently or synchronously setting hardware breakpoints, running, stepping or halting all four cores.

The debugger also provides advanced trace capabilities, featuring trace analysis and trigger windows that make it easy for MSC8102 users to save and load trace data to files, identify pertinent exception events, initiate trace (before, after, and during trigger events), and save/load trigger setups.

The Multi debugger is RTOS aware, enabling users to debug and tune MSC8102 applications running under popular RTOSes.

Support is planned for OSE Systems' OSEck at a process level.

With Multi's freeze mode debugging, users can debug (including setting task-specific breakpoints) one or more processes running on any of the MSC8102 cores.

Multi communicates with the MSC8102 target system through either a Macraigor Wiggler, or Green Hills Software's own high-speed hardware debug Probe, which supports simultaneous multi-core debug with download rates of greater than 400Kbyte/s.

Multi features the industry's fastest and most efficient MSC8102 optimising C and C++ compilers, which automatically partition code for optimal execution on the MSC8102's multiple MAC, ALU and BFU processing units.

The compilers also take full advantage of the MSC8102's variable-length execution set (VLES), providing more than 100 advanced optimisations that boost performance and code efficiency.

Reordering VLES instruction groupings, for example, boosts performance and reduces RAM usage by increasing VLES packing efficiency and increasing parallelism.

The compiler also increases parallelism by reordering operations within loops, and reduces looping overhead by supporting zero-overhead hardware looping for loops that are nested up to four deep.

The Multi IDE runs on Windows, Linux and Solaris hosts and is available for the StarCore MSC8102 now. Request a free brochure from Green Hills Software....

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