MCU toolset features upgraded debugger

Toolset for the C166/ST10 microcontroller family claims substantial performance gains over traditional C166 development tools.

Altium has announced the release of a new Tasking VX-toolset for the C166/ST10 microcontroller family which offers substantial performance gains over traditional C166 development tools.

Initial benchmarking of the Tasking VX-toolset for the C166/ST10 microcontroller family indicates that it provides an average improvement of 45% in code compression and 24% in code speed optimisation, enabling customers to deliver high-quality applications to market faster.

This high performance is enabled by Altium's sophisticated, next-generation Viper C compiler technology.

The compiler, which also drives the embedded capabilities of the company's Altium Designer unified development system, produces highly optimised code with the smallest footprint and fastest execution possible.

Altium's new Tasking VX-toolset for C166/ST10 also offers a new debugger that provides full support for the latest industry design trends such as multicore application development, plus toolset integration into the popular Eclipse platform as an integrated development environment (IDE).

The VX-toolset gives the user all the necessary development tools available within one state-of-the-art and industry-standard IDE, with the option to plug-in additional modules from third parties.

Altium has also extended the Eclipse IDE with configuration options for the C166 tools and the target application.

Wizard functionality helps users set up embedded projects and configuration for debugging on hardware: "The Tasking C166/XC166 compiler from Altium has been a very powerful compiler for many years and this new offering raises the bar in terms of what's possible with Infineon's processor architecture".

commented Dr Christopher Hegarty, Vice President and General Manager, Infineon Technologies.

Altium's new Tasking VX-toolset for C166 and ST10 will support all popular Infineon Technologies C166/XC166 and STMicroelectronics ST10/Super10 derivatives as before, but it is also ready to support new family members when they become available.

Devices with an onboard multiply-accumulate coprocessor (MAC) will also benefit from the new compiler through code-generation from C source level - a unique feature for this class of compiler.

"The new Tasking VX-toolset for C166 and ST10 reaffirms Altium's compiler technology leadership in the microcontroller market" said Harm-Andre Verhoef, Product Manager, Tasking Tools, Altium.

"The code performance offered by this new toolset is unmatched within the embedded development market and the combination of Infineon's new C166 microcontroller series and the new VX-compiler gives a level of processing power similar to systems where a 32bit microcontroller would be required".

Altium's Tasking VX-toolset for C166 and ST10 will be available in three targeted bundles - Standard, Professional and Premium Editions - allowing developers to choose the best fit for their application development activities.

The toolset is available for PC/Windows and Sun/Solaris platforms and other platforms are supported on request.

Prices start at Eur 2495 for the Standard Edition for PC/Windows, which includes the C compiler and simulator debugger.

For existing Tasking C166/ST10 users wanting to upgrade to the new VX-compiler toolset, a conversion utility and special upgrade pricing is available.

Back to top