Tensilica Announces RTOS Targeting Kit for Xtensa Processors

Chicago, Ill., February 29, 2000 … At the Spring Embedded Systems Conference, Tensilica Inc., the Santa Clara-based provider of application-specific processor technology, disclosed the availability of the OSKit RTOS targeting environment that allows software engineers to easily customize an operating system for unique Xtensa processor configurations.

Bernie Rosenthal, Tensilica’s vice president of marketing and business development, said, “Xtensa allows users to customize and extend a CPU core to best meet an embedded system’s processing requirements. With the innovation of the OSKit solution, system software developers can now quickly and correctly target commercial or proprietary RTOSs to their application-tailored Xtensa processor, resulting in faster development and time-to-market.”

Available now, the OSKit targeting environment is part of the Xtensa support package provided to licensees.

System Software on Xtensa

There are several sources for system software (software that runs on top of the basic services software) for the Xtensa processor. Tensilica provides a basic run time for use in single threaded applications, various RTOS vendors offer commercial products for Xtensa and, of course, runtime software can be developed independently for each application. The OSKit environment is intended to support all three sources.

The Xtensa processor basic run time - a part of the linker packages providing basic handlers and the GNU-based C run time - is supplied both in object and source for each processor configuration. It lets users bring up and run single threaded applications on both the board and the simulator.

Because the Xtensa processor core is configurable and extensible, commercial real time operating systems also need to be customized for each configuration. Operating System Overlays are packages that customize an operating system for a given configuration. Tensilica provides these as a part of the OSKit environment so that real time operating systems are fully supported for each unique Xtensa configuration.

Finally, Tensilica provides source code and documentation to aid the developer who is producing proprietary system software. This source code is intended to furnish both an example and a starting point for the developer who is porting an operating system or who is developing an operating system from scratch for the Xtensa architecture.

Commercial RTOS Support

Wind River Systems and Accelerated Technology provide commercial Real Time Operating System support for the Xtensa processor. Xtensa users can run either the ATI Nucleus kernel or Wind River System’s VxWorks RTOS and Tornado 2.0 integrated development environment.

Each of these operating systems fully supports each Xtensa configuration by virtue of the operating system overlay. The OS overlay customizes the operating system so that it fully understands each particular Xtensa configuration. The OS overlays for each RTOS are automatically generated during the processor’s configuration, and are part of the hardware RTL and tool chain deliverables. These enable the Xtensa processor to run them “out of the box” without modification. In the case of VxWorks, the OS overlay also provides full integration support with the companion Tornado 2 IDE. In addition, BSPs are distributed with the OS overlay of both the Xtensa Instruction Set Simulator (ISS) and the XT1000 evaluation kit.

About Tensilica

Tensilica was founded in July 1997 to address the fast-growing market for application-specific microprocessor cores and software development tools in high volume, embedded systems. Using the company's proprietary Xtensa™ Processor Generator, system-on-a-chip (SOC) designers can develop a processor subsystem hardware design and a complete software development tool environment tailored to their specific requirements in hours. Tensilica's solutions provide a proven, easy-to-use, methodology that enables designers to achieve optimum application performance in minimum design time. The Company is engaged in research, development, and customer support from its offices in Santa Clara, California, Waltham, Massachusetts, Princeton, New Jersey, Yokohama, Japan and London, UK.

Tensilica is headquartered in Santa Clara, California (95054) at 3255-6 Scott Boulevard, and can be reached at (408) 986-8000 or via the World Wide Web at www.tensilica.com

"Tensilica", "Xtensa" and "OSKit" are the trademarks belonging to Tensilica Inc.