Accelerated Technology's Nucleus EDGE Embedded Development Environment Supports MIPS Architecture.

MOBILE, Ala. -- Accelerated Technology, a Mentor Graphics division (Nasdaq:MENT), today announced that its Eclipse-powered Nucleus(R) EDGE software development environment is now available for the MIPS32(R) and MIPS64(R) architectures from MIPS Technologies. With the Nucleus software, developers using the 4K(R), 4KE(TM), 5K(R) and 24K(R) core families for digital entertainment and multimedia applications have a tightly integrated development environment in which to more quickly and easily build products to better meet market demand.

"Our customers need to accelerate their time to market in order to excel in the highly competitive digital consumer space," said Russ Bell, vice president of marketing for MIPS Technologies. "Leveraging the industry-leading MIPS architecture and the Nucleus EDGE software environment allows designers to meet and exceed their development objectives and deliver superior products."

"This new development environment consists of MIPS Technologies optimized software, including SDE compiler and MIPSsim(TM) instruction set simulator, integrated into the industry-standard Eclipse platform," said Robert Day, director of marketing, Accelerated Technology Division, Mentor Graphics. "Combined with our Nucleus EDGE software, developers of MIPS-Based SoCs now get the most complete embedded tool chain, ranging from high-level UML design tools, down to advanced debugging and profiling tools, all working seamlessly together under the Eclipse framework."

The Eclipse-based Nucleus EDGE software includes an intuitive graphical user interface (GUI) that provides tutorials and demos to guide users through the development process. The user interface (UI) is also more responsive, permitting users to interact with the GUI while the Nucleus EDGE software is busy running background tasks such as building the user application. This is particularly useful when debugging large applications with multiple cores, as engineers typically focus on different parts of their application, concurrently.

The Nucleus EDGE software contains an advanced project manager, complete with an editor and builder that helps users automate their build process. Developers can now set up one or more build environments by specifying the compiler and build options, giving total control over multiple projects and allowing for quick and easy revisions of their embedded systems. This advanced build system is fully integrated with the MIPS SDE compiler, and allows other command line-based tools to be plugged in as well.

Adhering to the Eclipse platform debug paradigm, and hence offering ultimate openness, the Nucleus debugger provides developers with a number of debugging environments. For example, using host-based debugging, software developers can experiment by running an application on the host machine before the final hardware is available or even decided upon. This allows the software developer to start coding earlier in the development cycle. Utilizing the MIPSsim instruction set simulator and MDI based on-chip debugging via JTAG then allows users to run their "real" optimized embedded code from the same environment.

The Nucleus debugger also provides all the basic execution and memory control, plus advanced debugging features such as run-mode debug and kernel awareness when using a real-time operating system (RTOS). It also provides real-time trace, profiling, performance analysis, and code coverage for doing sophisticated code analysis. Additionally, the Nucleus debugger offers embedded developers true multi-core debugging, allowing them to fully debug their complete embedded system, whether small or complex.

For connectivity to MIPS Technologies' target markets, the Nucleus EDGE software supports the Meta Debug Interface (MDI) protocol, which allows additional support for the FS2 System Navigator and the MIPSsim Instruction Set Simulator (ISS), as well as the Macraigor Systems OCD family of EJTAG probes.

Pricing and Availability

Licenses for the complete Nucleus EDGE development suite begin at U.S. $3,000 per seat. 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 over $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 division of Mentor Graphics Corporation, is located in Mobile, Alabama, and has engineering sites, sales offices and distributors worldwide. As a leading provider of royalty-free, embedded real-time operating system (RTOS) software, Accelerated Technology helps developers accelerate product time-to-market in a wide range of embedded device applications. Its comprehensive Nucleus RTOS includes a high-level design UML suite, graphical prototyping tools, kernels, middleware and Eclipse-based development tools. For more information, please visit www.acceleratedtechnology.com or e-mail us at [e-mail].

Mentor Graphics, Accelerated Technology 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.