Toolset turns to Altera's embedded processor

A new Tasking VX-toolset is designed for Altera Corporation's Nios II family of embedded processors.

Altium has announced the release of a new Tasking VX-toolset for Altera Corporation's Nios II family of embedded processors.

Altium's Tasking VX-toolset for the Nios II embedded processor operates seamlessly within the Nios II integrated development environment (IDE) and acts as a "drop in" replacement to Altera's standard Gnu C compiler (GCC) to deliver significantly enhanced code optimisation options for developers and produce faster and smaller applications.

With this release, developers will be able to add the Tasking VX-toolset to their Nios II IDE and gain access to a technically advanced compiler that includes the superior quality code generation capabilities and highly optimised, comprehensive support for all features of the Nios II family of embedded processors.

Integration of the Tasking VX-toolset into the Nios II IDE, which is based on the open source Eclipse platform, is completely seamless.

Developers gain significant productivity and quality benefits without having to spend time interfacing to external tools.

Altium's sophisticated, next-generation Viper C compiler technology makes the Tasking VX-toolset for the Nios II embedded processor unique.

The compiler excels in producing highly optimised code with the smallest footprint and fastest execution possible.

This proven technology, as featured in Altium's industry-leading Tasking embedded software development toolsets, also drives the embedded capabilities of the company's Altium Designer product, the industry's leading unified electronic product development system that brings together hardware, programmable hardware and software design within a single application.

"The Nios II embedded processor is the leading FPGA-based soft CPU core in the market today, with usage spanning a broad range of applications", commented Chris Balough, Director of Software and Nios Marketing for Altera.

"With the release of this new VX-toolset from Altium, our customers now have access to a compiler technology that promises to boost system performance through higher levels of code optimisation".

Initial benchmarking of the Tasking VX-toolset for the Nios II family of embedded processors indicates that it provides significant performance advantages of up to 40% increase in code execution speed and 20% decrease in memory footprint over the GCC compiler, enabling customers to deliver high-quality applications to market faster.

As well as the direct code optimisation benefits, the new Tasking VX-toolset for the Nios II family also provides users with an easy migration path to Altium Designer.

Altium Designer includes full design support for Nios II-based systems, and the Tasking VX-toolset for the Nios II embedded processor will provide direct C code-level compatibility with Altium Designer.

This will enable developers to transition projects and take advantage of a unified hardware/software co-design environment that includes FPGA-based virtual instruments for interactive hardware/software debugging - what Altium calls LiveDesign - to accelerate system development.

This allows designers to develop more intelligent products faster by fully utilising the potential of high-capacity FPGA devices as a "soft" system development platform, and synchronising the design of the physical platform with the "embedded intelligence" residing on the programmable devices, including FPGAs and processors.

"The Nios II embedded processor is gaining popularity as a processing solution and provides a highly optimised platform for embedded design using Altera FPGAs", said Nick Martin, Founder and CEO, Altium.

"The release of this new Tasking VX-toolset gives Nios II developers a high-quality, drop-in development alternative for demanding applications".

"It also opens the door to the future by allowing them to easily harness the unified development possibilities presented by our ground-breaking Altium Designer system".

Pricing and availability Altium's Tasking VX-toolset for the Nios II family of embedded processes includes: a plug-in for Eclipse-based Nios II IDE from Altera; C compiler; assembler with macro-preprocessor; C libraries, run-time libraries, floating-point libraries; and linker and locator.

The toolset is available for immediate purchase and is priced at US $2995.

Altium is currently promoting a special introductory offer of US $1995 for all purchases made before 29th September 2006.

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