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CAMBRIDGE, UK, November 6, 2008, - Crossware (www.crossware.com), a leading embedded software tools developer, has released a modular set of tools for the ARM7 microcontrollers.

Based upon Crossware’s comprehensive ARM Development Suite, the modular system breaks out the components required to support various families of ARM7 chips. This allows developers on a limited budget to benefit, for their chosen ARM7 variants, from all of the advanced features of the Crossware tools.

A base package provides the tool chain, including an advanced C/C++ compiler, linker and standard libraries, as well as the ARM core simulator, source level debugger, Jaguar USB JTAG debugger interface, and the Embedded Development Studio IDE.

Developers can then select modules to add to this base package that will provide additional features specific to the variants supported by the modules. The additional features provided include C header files for the specific variants, Code Creation Wizards that will generate configuration and application code for the on-chip peripherals, simulator extensions to simulate on-chip peripherals, and debugging extensions for programming on-chip and, where appropriate, external memory.

If a developer decides to target a different ARM7 family, then the module for that family can be purchased and added to the developer’s existing environment.

Modules are currently available for the Atmel SAM7 chips, the LPC21xx/LPX22xx chips from NXP and the STR71x/STR73x/STR75x chips from STMicroelectronics.

As with Crossware’s full suite, developers can download updates for 12 months from the date of purchase thereby ensuring that they can benefit from any enhancements that are added during this period.