RTOS Support Accelerates Embedded System Development on LatticeMICO32 Microprocessor

uC/OS-II Kernel Included With the LatticeMico32 Development Tools

HILLSBORO, OR--Oct 23, 2006 -- Lattice Semiconductor Corporation today announced the availability of Real-Time Operating System (RTOS) support for its LatticeMico32(TM) open source 32-bit soft microprocessor. A port of Micrium's uC/OS-II RTOS is included with the latest version of the LatticeMico32 Development Tools, which is being released concurrently with Lattice's award-winning ispLEVER® software design tool suite, Version 6.1. The combination of the LatticeMico32 microprocessor and the uC/OS-II RTOS allows users to rapidly develop embedded systems, particularly performance sensitive real-time systems.

"The use of an RTOS helps manage the complex interactions between software tasks in an embedded system, giving our customers the ability to easily develop and manage their real-time embedded software," said Stan Kopec, Lattice corporate vice president of marketing. "We are pleased to work with Micrium to offer a port of their uC/OS-II RTOS, a very popular option with embedded systems developers, targeted for our FPGAs. Using the uC/OS-II RTOS with our LatticeMico32 microprocessor core and high performance FPGAs will allow designers to experience our 'More of the Best' solution philosophy first hand and reduce their time-to-market."

"The LatticeMico32 brings another solid microprocessor platform to the marketplace," said Jean Labrosse, president of Micrium. "uC/OS-II complements the LatticeMico32 by enabling accelerated development of fully functional embedded designs. As we move forward, we are eager to serve our mutual customers with a complete embedded system solution."

Micrium's uC/OS-II RTOS

The uC/OS-II is a portable, ROMable, scalable, preemptive real-time multitasking kernel (RTOS) for microprocessors, microcontrollers and DSPs. Micrium's uC/OS-II is provided as 100% portable ANSI C source code, which can manage up to 255 tasks and provide the following services:

• Semaphores
• Mutual Exclusion Semaphores (to reduce priority inversions)
• Event Flags
• Message Mailboxes
• Message Queues
• Task Management (Create, Delete, Change Priority, Suspend/Resume etc.)
• Fixed-Sized Memory Block management
• Time Management
• Timer Management

Designers can scale uC/OS-II to contain only the features they require, creating a small footprint. For example, the uC/OS-II can be reduced to as little as 2K bytes of code space and 200 bytes of data space (excluding stacks). Further, the execution time for most of the services provided by the uC/OS-II is constant and deterministic, so that execution times are not dependant on the number of tasks running in a given application.

About the LatticeMico32 Embedded Microprocessor

The LatticeMico32 core is a comprehensive, high performance and easy-to-use 32-bit soft RISC microprocessor utilizing the open-standard WISHBONE bus and is optimized for use with Lattice Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs). The footprint-efficient soft core typically requires only 2K LUTs of FPGA logic and has a variety of configurations which trade off instruction and data caching, hardware multiplication and other core features to optimize performance and LUT utilization. Eight standard peripherals including memory controllers, UARTs, I/O ports and other common functions are being offered initially with the microprocessor to complete the system-on-a-chip solution.

The LatticeMico32 core is unique among the microprocessors offered by FPGA vendors because the generated microprocessor and selected peripheral HDL code are licensed under Lattice's open source license agreement. This unique license allows users to ensure that their proprietary designs remain proprietary and allows the implementation and distribution of hardware without the need for a separate license agreement. Additionally, the GNU-based compiler, assembler, linker and debugger, supplied by Lattice, are released under the standard GNU General Public License (GPL) agreement. The flexible LatticeMico32 microprocessor will find application in a wide variety of markets including communications, consumer, computing, medical, industrial and automotive.

Pricing and Availability

Lattice includes a port of the uC-OS-II RTOS from Micrium in its LatticeMico32 Development Tools, which are open source and free of charge. This port is for evaluation and non-commercial use. For commercial use, designers should obtain a license directly from Micrium. The LatticeMico32 Development Tools CD is shipped with the ispLEVER design tool suite or can be downloaded from the Internet at: http://www.latticesemi.com/products/intellectualproperty/ipcores/mico32

About Micrium

Micrium provides high-quality embedded software components in the industry by way of engineer-friendly source code, unsurpassed documentation and customer support. The company's world-renowned real-time operating system, the Micrium uC/OS-II, features the highest-quality source code available for today's embedded market. Micrium delivers to the embedded marketplace a full portfolio of embedded software components that complement uC/OS-II: a TCP/IP stack, USB stack, CAN stack, File System (FS), Graphical User Interface (GUI), and many other high-quality embedded components. Micrium's products consistently shorten time-to-market throughout all product development cycles. For additional information on Micrium, please visit www.micrium.com.

About Lattice Semiconductor

Lattice Semiconductor Corporation provides the industry's broadest range of Programmable Logic Devices (PLD), including Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGA), Complex Programmable Logic Devices (CPLD), Mixed-Signal Power Management and Clock Generation Devices, and industry-leading SERDES products.

Lattice continues to deliver "More of the Best" to its customers with comprehensive solutions for system design, including an unequaled portfolio of high performance, non-volatile and low cost FPGAs.

Lattice products are sold worldwide through an extensive network of independent sales representatives and distributors, primarily to OEM customers in communications, computing, industrial, consumer, automotive, medical and military end markets. For more information, visit http://www.latticesemi.com