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San Jose, CA, Communications Design Conference, October 2, 2001 -- Green Hills Software today announced the industry's fastest and most intelligent hardware debug probe for Motorola's StarCore®-based MSC810x DSPs and StarCore-based SoC embedded systems. The new probe, together with Green Hills' MULTI® 2000 source-level debugger and IDE, greatly simplifies the debugging of embedded DSP programs by streamlining host/target communications and handling many debugging functions previously handled by the host.

The Green Hills Probe™ utilizes an embedded 32-bit processor and reconfigurable logic to achieve MSC8101 host/target download speeds of 200kb/sec, up to 10x faster than its competitors. The Probe's built-in intelligence also enables it to provide advanced target read/write and control facilities, and to host a built-in web server that simplifies setup, status, and diagnostics. The Green Hills Probe supports a variety of host connections, including USB, Ethernet and Serial. Green Hills developed the Probe for the MSC8101 DSP as part of its Alliance for Product Technology with Motorola, announced earlier this year.

"The Probe is one of the first fruits of our Alliance with Motorola," said John Carbone, vice president of marketing at Green Hills Software. "It speeds up development time, and provides better target visibility and control for multi-processor and SoC designs based on StarCore technology. When used with our MULTI® IDE, the Probe completes today's most powerful tool chain to support StarCore-based DSP system development."

"We are impressed with Green Hills' new Probe, and the performance it brings to developers," said Graham Haddock, vice president and general manager for Motorola's Wireless Infrastructure Systems Division. "Our MSC810x customers will benefit from the Green Hills Probe's advanced features and spectacular performance."

"The Green Hills Probe is easy to use and outperforms our previous probe by a wide margin, enabling us to speed up our development process significantly," says Gadi Shavit, Program Manager at Zoran Microelectronics.

The Green Hills Probe is a high-speed debug interface that provides access to, and control over, StarCore-based target processors via the processor's EOnCE port. Using the Green Hills Probe, the host-based MULTI debugger can upload data from the target processor, run, halt, and reset the processor, read/write the processor's registers and memory, single-step through code, and set hardware and software breakpoints.

The Green Hills Probe's tight integration with MULTI's debugger greatly reduces latency for common debug commands. It also enables the probe to deliver the fastest host/target download speeds of any debug probe. For example, the Green Hills Probe supports download speeds of 200 kbytes/sec on a StarCore-based processor, more than 8x faster than the nearest competitor.

The Green Hills Probe works with Solaris, Windows 9x/ME/NT/2000/XP, HP/UX, and Linux hosts, and connects to the host-resident debugger via an Ethernet, USB, or RS-232C serial port. The probe connects to the StarCore-based target processor via its industry-standard EOnCE debug port.

The Green Hills Probe supports SoC (system on chip) designs, including those with multiple homogeneous and heterogeneous cores. In multi-core SoC applications, the probe accesses the cores in daisy chain fashion through a single EOnCE port.

The Green Hills Probe operates from a 7-15V external dc supply, and consumes no target power. The probe can be used with target systems operating from 1.5V to 5V, and can be connected/disconnected from the target system while it is running. Probe diagnostics are included in every segment, all the way down to the EOnCE pin level.

More On Green Hills Software

Incorporated in 1982, Green Hills Software, Inc., is a leading supplier of royalty-free real-time operating systems and software development tools for 32- and 64-bit embedded systems. Green Hills' royalty-free ThreadX® and INTEGRITY™ real-time operating systems, fully integrated with its market leading compilers and MULTI® (IDE), provide a total development and run-time solution that addresses both deeply embedded and maximum reliability applications. Green Hills Software is headquartered in Santa Barbara, CA, with European headquarters in the United Kingdom. For more information on Green Hills Software products, please call 805-965-6044 or email inquiries to sales@ghs.com.

Green Hills Software, the Green Hills Logo and MULTI are registered trademarks and Green Hills Probe is a trademark of Green Hills Software, Inc. All other trademarks are the property of their respective companies.