Accelerated Technology's Next-Generation Nucleus BridgePoint Tool Suite Brings UML-based Development to Eclipse Platform.

SAN FRANCISCO -- Accelerated Technology(R), a Mentor Graphics division (Nasdaq:MENT), today announced version 7.0 of its Nucleus(R) BridgePoint(R) UML suite based on the Unified Modeling Language (UML) specification, and the open Eclipse platform -- the embedded industry's emerging standard. With the advanced Nucleus BridgePoint product, developers can now more easily model, verify, compile and debug their software applications and ensure that specification and correct functionality have been met.

"Accelerated Technology continues to be the only embedded software provider offering a full design flow of products ranging from a high-level design tool to a complete embedded software development suite and real-time operating system (RTOS)," said Robert Day, director of marketing for Accelerated Technology. "The new features of the Nucleus BridgePoint software, tightly integrated with the powerful Eclipse-based Nucleus EDGE development environment, offer a very powerful yet easy-to-useUML environment for embedded developers. This now allows developers of any type of embedded system to benefit from model-based design productivity gains."

The Nucleus BridgePoint UML suite uses xtUML, an executable and translatable version of UML. This allows developers to easily write and translate verified models into either embedded C or C++ code without round-trip engineering, which is used to synchronize software code and models.

Comprising years of technology development, the Nucleus BridgePoint environment is a suite of plug-ins to the Eclipse platform. The tightly integrated Nucleus BridgePoint environment and the Nucleus EDGE software give developers a single environment in which to build their embedded application, from design to deployment. It also offers total control over the quality and stability of their application, full control of release cycles, shorter learning curves and a common platform with desktop tools.

Version 7.0 of the Nucleus BridgePoint software provides new features that significantly improve the productivity of a UML-based embedded design. A model comparison feature that shows developers the differences between two versions of a model helps significantly improve review processes, increase the quality of the resulting code, and reduce the overall effort required to enhance and maintain existing models. The Nucleus BridgePoint product also integrates with the CVS version-control and configuration-management facility allowing developers to version-control their models with the popular tool. Using the Eclipse platform as a platform also allows this functionality with other version management programs.

Developers can also benefit from the Object Action Language (OAL) syntax-aware activity editor in the Nucleus BridgePoint product. This feature provides colored highlighting of OAL keywords, real-time parsing, and detection of syntax errors as well as semantic inconsistencies in the activities expressed in OAL.

An integrated translation environment allows developers to convert UML models into 100 percent complete and optimized code with a simple push of a button. The Eclipse framework with the integrated Nucleus EDGE environment (where the UML models are built and the resulting code is compiled, linked and debugged) facilitates this powerful feature, transparently.

The Nucleus BridgePoint tool also includes an updated version of the MC-3020 Model Compiler that generates ANSI C from UML models. Version 4.0 of the MC-3020 compiler now provides support for persistent data using any non-volatile storage medium and full multi-tasking support for the Accelerated Technology Nucleus PLUS kernel. The Nucleus BridgePoint Model Debugger tool then provides complete model-level debugging capabilities for the generated source code including the ability to set class-based and instance-based breakpoints on model-level constructs like the generation of an event, access of an attribute or entry to a state.

Availability

Available now, licenses for version 7.0 of the Nucleus BridgePoint software begin at U.S. $12,500. For more information, please contact Accelerated Technology at 800-468-6853 or [e-mail].

About Mentor Graphics

Mentor Graphics Corporation (Nasdaq:MENT) is a world leader in electronic hardware and software design solutions, providing products, consulting services and award-winning support for the world's most successful electronics and semiconductor companies. Established in 1981, the company reported revenues over the last 12 months of about $700 million and employs approximately 3,850 people worldwide. Corporate headquarters are located at 8005 S.W. Boeckman Road, Wilsonville, Oregon 97070-7777; Silicon Valley headquarters are located at 1001 Ridder Park Drive, San Jose, California 95131-2314. World Wide Web site: http://www.mentor.com/.

Accelerated Technology, a Mentor Graphics division, is located in Mobile, Alabama with sales offices and distributors worldwide. By providing embedded systems developers with a focus on service, well-documented source code and industry-leading non-royalty-based Real-Time Operating Systems (RTOS) software including modeling software, prototyping tools, kernels, middleware and development tools. AT's suite of products shorten time-to-market and provide a complete solution for engineers. For more information, please visit www.acceleratedtechnology.com or e-mail us at [e-mail].

Mentor Graphics, Accelerated Technology, BridgePoint and Nucleus are registered trademarks of Mentor Graphics Corporation. All other company or product names are the registered trademarks or trademarks of their respective owners.