Altium releases new TASKING development tools to support ON Semiconductor’s LC87 microcontroller family

Eclipse IDE based toolset with compiler, simulator and hardware debugger

Tuesday, February 25, 2014:  Altium Limited, a global leader in Smart System Design Automation, 3D PCB design (Altium Designer) and embedded software development (TASKING), announces support for the LC87 microcontroller family from ON Semiconductor® Corporation, through a brand new TASKING compiler suite based on its highly respected Viper ”VX” compiler technology.

The TASKING VX-toolset is a set of development tools for building and debugging embedded applications using C and assembly. It brings high-performance and compact code generation, as well as advanced debugging capabilities to embedded designs incorporating LC87 microcontrollers. ON Semiconductor’s LC87 product family of microcontrollers includes more than 100 devices. These 8 bit microcontrollers are widely used for energy-saving products like equipment for healthcare, audio, communication, mobile, and security, as well as home appliances and power tools.

The new LC87 compiler has been developed from the ground up, using Altium’s highly efficient Viper “VX” compiler technology. Viper is a modern compiler technology fully developed and owned by Altium. The use of Viper technology guarantees compatibility to other popular TASKING toolsets, which have established a solid “proven in use” reputation with highly efficient and robust code for a wide range of applications.

Harm-Andre Verhoef, Product Manager TASKING at Altium BV, says: “We are honored to be partnering with ON Semiconductor on providing development tools for the LC87 family. This cooperation demonstrates the importance of providing high-performance development tools that enable customers to build optimized system solutions. We are confident that the performance and code size optimizations our tools bring to the LC87 family will contribute to its continued success.”

“Customers require high reliability software development tools including debugger system, and we are confident that the new Altium TASKING tools provide robust support for our microcontroller business,” said Atsushi Bando, general manager of the Digital Solutions division at ON Semiconductor. “We are focused on providing comprehensive system solutions for customers utilizing our portfolio of microcontrollers. The reliable firmware realized by TASKING tools, along with trusted tool support improves and eases system development for our customers.”

Features of the TASKING VX-toolset for LC87 include:

• Eclipse IDE with seamlessly integrated C compiler and simulator
• MISRA C and CERT C code analyzer built into the compiler
• Highly efficient code optimization techniques, especially targeting small memory footprints
• Hardware debugger, interfacing to on-chip debug systems and supporting the ”Easy Micon” kits

Availability
The TASKING VX-toolset for the ON Semiconductor LC87 series is available immediately on PC/Windows as a Premium Edition bundle, bringing all functionality for editing, building and debugging of applications. Toolset licenses are available through ON Semiconductor as well as Altium. A code-size limited toolset will be available for downloading from the TASKING website and through ON Semiconductor.

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ON Semiconductor (Nasdaq: ONNN) is driving energy efficient innovations, empowering design engineers to reduce global energy use. The company offers a comprehensive portfolio of energy efficient power and signal management, logic, discrete and custom solutions to help customers solve their unique design challenges in automotive, communications, computing, consumer, industrial, LED lighting,