Motorola’s development tool strategy for 8-Bit microcontroller system design

Austin, Tex. – As part of a strategy to assist embedded systems engineers develop fast, re-programmable embedded systems using cost-effective Flash memory, Motorola Inc.’s Semiconductor Products Sector is providing complimentary licenses of Metrowerks CodeWarrior tools for the HC08 Flash MCU family. Now, embedded systems engineers can save over US$2,000 on these tools for these 8-Bit microcontroller (MCU) families.

The 68HC08 Flash microcontrollers are single-chip 8-bit solutions that are designed to provide flexibility for cost-effective field software upgrades through in-application programmability and re-programmability.

CodeWarrior Development Studio for HC08, Special Edition, integrates full-chip simulation and Flash programming with P&E Microcomputer Systems technology, automatic initialization and driver code generation with Unis Processor Expert technology, an assembler, linker, and a code size limited C compiler and C source level debugger.

“Development tools are an essential component of any MCU design project,” said Paul Grimme, corporate vice president and general manager for Motorola’s 8/16-Bit Microcontroller Division. “Motorola and Metrowerks are providing professional, high quality software tools for the 68HC08 at no charge to help our customers shorten development cycles and demonstrate our commitment to complete systems solutions.”

The CodeWarrior Integrated Development Environment (IDE) provides an intuitive graphical user interface that is common to all Motorola microcontrollers for easy migration. Design engineers can create, compile, link, assemble, and debug from a single IDE.

Will full-chip simulation, design engineers can start software development immediately without waiting for target hardware or requiring an evaluation board or emulator. The included simulator and debugger gives engineers resources to develop applications while the Flash programming software enables programming of prototype code.

The Rapid Application Design Tool provides optimized and tested automatic C code generation for HC08 peripherals to reduce development time and improve code quality. The tool also verifies design based on actual MCU resources and timing contentions to catch potential problems before designers begin debugging.

The CodeWarrior ANSI C compliant compiler was designed to take full advantage of the HC08 architecture, with more than 60 advanced optimization strategies specifically designed to boost performance and reduce code size. The CodeWarrior Development Studio for HC08, Special Edition includes a free C compiler for Motorola’s most popular cost-effective flash HC08s: 68HC908JL3/JK3/JK1/ KX2/GR4/RK2/RF2, and any future derivative with 4K bytes or less memory.

The Special Edition for HC08 is available now at no charge, a savings of more than $2,000 US via download from the Motorola web site. The kit will also be available via CD-ROM beginning May 1, 2002. Metrowerks is also offering an upgrade to the full HC08 C compiler for $495 US (previously $2000) through July 22. The Special Edition fully supports Motorola ICS, MMDS, MMEVS, Cyclone, and MON08 Multilink hardware tools.

Control Engineering Daily News DeskGary A. Mintchell, senior editor gmintchell@cahners.com

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