Development Suite from Crossware Supports New ColdFire MCF5272
CAMBRIDGE, UK, December 12, 2000, - Crossware (www.crossware.com), a leading embedded software tools developer, has added support for Motorola’s new MCF5272 to its ColdFire Development Suite. The ColdFire MCF5272 microprocessor includes an extensive range of communications peripherals including Ethernet and USB controllers. Selecting MCF5272 as the variant in Crossware’s Development Suite automatically configures the C compiler, assembler, simulator and debugger for this new chip. Developers can therefore get started with or switch to the MCF5272 without delay.
From the beginning, Crossware’s Embedded Development Studio has supported an assembler level startup system in which an initialisation file can be automatically generated when a new project is created and automatically swapped to a different version when the microprocessor family or variant was changed. To simplify configuration of Motorola’s ColdFire family of microprocessors, this system has recently been extended to provide startup code in C as well as assembler.
Sample routines in C to configure the ColdFire chip selects and DRAM controller are automatically created to suit the ColdFire variant. The system also initialises pointers into the ColdFire system integration unit (SIM). Therefore pointers to structures for the timers, UARTs, DMA controller, etc. are all pre-initialised and ready to use. Furthermore, if the ColdFire variant is changed, the C initialisation files will be swapped and the SIM structures will be modified as appropriate.
By extending this system to the MCF5272, developers can have instant access to the hardware that controls the Ethernet and USB controllers and all of the other additional on-chip peripherals. New skeleton programs for the MCF5272 can be instantly created from scratch, or existing programs written for a different ColdFire variant can be immediately transformed into MCF5272 compatible programs.
Developers can therefore get started with or switch to the MCF5272 without delay.
About Crossware (www.crossware.com)
Crossware is a leading developer of programmer-friendly C/C++ cross compilers and other development tools for embedded systems based on the 8051, ColdFire, ARM, 68000, CPU32 and other chip families. Host environments include Windows 9x, Windows NT, Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7, Windows 8/8.1 and Windows 10. The company, founded by Alan Harry in 1984, is headquartered in the UK at Litlington on the outskirts of Cambridge. Crossware’s products are used throughout the world by professional developers, educational establishments and hobbyists.