Operating-System Support Grows With Processor

Many designers are using the ColdFire processor families from Freescale Semiconductor, Inc. (www.freescale.
com). Now, those engineers have an automated development tool suite at their disposal. The integration of commercial real-time operating systems (RTOSs) in ColdFire designs is now supported by Version 5 of the Metrowerks CodeWarrior Development Studio for ColdFire Architectures.

For the embedded-Linux operating-system developers who are planning to leverage the newest ColdFire architectures, Metrowerks offers CodeWarrior Development Studio for ColdFire ISA, Linux Platform Edition. This edition provides commercial-grade Linux development solutions. It streamlines a full range of tasks including board bring-up, kernel-level debugging, driver development, and application creation—all within a Linux-OS development environment.

Some of the newest ColdFire processor architectures feature memory-management-unit (MMU) functionality. This feature enables developers to incorporate embedded-Linux technology. To support the MMU technology, Metrowerks offers tools for embedded-Linux-OS application, driver, and kernel development.

CodeWarrior for ColdFire Architectures is designed to integrate with ARC's high-performance MQX RTOS as well as many other embedded operating systems. It hopes to allow developers to incorporate commercial RTOS technologies into their ColdFire designs. Version 5 of the CodeWarrior Development Studio also provides a high-performance debugger, which addresses the challenges that are specific to developing within MMU-based semiconductor environments. The studio integrates with the company's run-control and code-analysis tools to provide a single environment for development—from hardware and OS bring-up to application creation and testing.

In addition, the studio provides the programming of both on-chip and on-board Flash memory. It enables integrated hardware diagnostics for board bring-up and an enhanced command window for complex scripting capabilities. A built-in software profiler delivers hot-spot analysis. In addition, an enhanced editor should translate into greater developer productivity.

The first Version 5 toolset will be the CodeWarrior Development Studio for the MCF547x and MCF548x architectures. It will ship with the Freescale evaluation boards that support those processors. Version 5 of the Metrowerks CodeWarrior Development Studio for ColdFire Architectures is priced at $5994. That price includes one year of support. CodeWarrior Development Studio for ColdFire ISA, Linux Platform Edition is priced at $5395. Evaluation CDs of Version 5 of the CodeWarrior Development Studio for ColdFire Architectures are available immediately.