Green Hills Software: Latest version of IDE tool

Productivity improvement tools were in the spotlight at ESC Boston. One notable example from Green Hills Software Inc. was Multi 4.0—an integrated development environment (IDE), which includes low-level, bare-board debugging features.

By Control Engineering Staff November 1, 2003

Green Hills Software’s Multi 4.0 environment supports PowerPC, ARM, MIPS, x86/Pentium, 68K/Coldfire, V800, and StarCore processor families, as well as native development for Microsoft Windows, Solaris, HP/UX, and Linux.

Productivity improvement tools were in the spotlight at ESC Boston . One notable example from Green Hills Software Inc . was Multi 4.0—an integrated development environment (IDE), which includes low-level, bare-board debugging features.

This latest version of Multi IDE extends productivity of developers over more aspects of the software development process. Workspace Manager provides a graphical interface to manage commonly used IDE actions. A typical sequence (project updating from the configuration management system, project building, connecting the debugger to the remote embedded system, and application downloading) can be created and added graphically into a workspace, then executed on demand with one click, says Green Hills.

Other significant Multi 4.0 enhancements improve the way developers visualize their application data structures. For example, this IDE reportedly eliminates inefficiency that C++ programmers find when using the Standard Template Library’s container implementation, by hiding implementation details and displaying only the relevant content.

Multi 4.0 offers enhanced support for low-level debugging, including:

Low-intrusion mode—with restricted access to memory and registers when debugging sensitive code segments, such as board initialization;

Enhanced register visualization—for improved data book display of core registers and allows on-the-fly creation of descriptions for additional peripheral registers;

Memory test wizard—to manage comprehensive tests that quickly and fully exercise/verify memory;

Script debugging—that records and allows controlled replay of actions made while adjusting system variables and registers during board initialization; and

PCI visualization—that allows developers to quickly enumerate, view, and control attached devices.

Multi 4.0 is scheduled to ship in Q403 with a starting list price of $5,900.

—Frank J. Bartos, executive editor, Control Engineering, fbartos@reedbusiness.co