Atmel Expands Third-Party Ecosystem of Tools and Software Partners for Recently Launched ARM Cortex-A5 Processor-based Family

According to the 2012 Embedded Study conducted by UBM, 61 percent of its respondents said the microprocessor's (MPUs) ecosystem (software, tools support, etc.) is one of the most critical aspects for their MPU designs. In this same study, respondents indicated that Embedded Linux and Android are two operating systems they had planned to use in the next 12 months for their embedded designs.

The expanded list of tools and software partners enable embedded design engineers using the Atmel SAMA5D3 series of ARM Cortex-A5 processor-based MPUs the ability to design on a variety of systems including embedded Linux, Android and other real-time operating systems.

Each partner company offers a tool enabling embedded designers the ability to get to market faster.

-Qt, the leading solution in the embedded market for user interface implementation by Timesys, provides the perfect tools for engineers to design a rich set of widgets and reference designs for devices powered by embedded Linux.
-The ARM DS-5 toolchain offers a complete development studio for Linux developers that need to optimize their code for performance and power management, or for designers that want to debug firmware.
-Partnering companies IAR and Express Logic offer tightly integrated solutions that assist designers in developing applications that deliver TCP/IP, USB, and OS functionality, along with real-time performance to meet today's most demanding software requirements.

The recently launched SAMA5D3 ARM Cortex-A5 series is our highest performing processor series in our comprehensive portfolio of microcontrollers, said Jacko Wilbrink, Sr. Director of ARM-based MPUs, Atmel. We are excited to team with a number of innovative companies to allow our embedded developers the ability to select their preferred integrated development environment, compiler, RTOS, stack and GUI. Each partner has worked closely with Atmel to ensure a designer will have a seamless experience when working with our partner companies.

Partner Quotes

ARM Quote

-With over 1.3 million activations per day Android is an extremely popular software platform, and it has become an OS of choice for Cortex-A5 processor based products. ARM has put a strong Android software and tools ecosystem in place to support embedded designers using our ARMv7 architecture, said Javier Orensanz, Director of Product Management, System Design Division, ARM. In addition to our broader system wide support the powerful ARM Development Studio 5 (DS-5) toolchain enables developers to make the most out of Atmel SAMA5D3 series devices, creating robust and highly optimized RTOS, Linux and Android-based applications.

Timesys

-We've developed an exhaustive Qt package for the new Atmel SAMA5D3 Cortex-A5 processor-based series evaluation kit that includes a rich GUI, comprehensive application examples, extensive documentation and training, and full customer support, said Brian Gildon, Vice President of Business Development, Timesys. As the leading user interface software for the Embedded Linux community, Qt is an alternative to Android that is easy-to-use with a strong and intuitive GUI. We are excited to partner with Atmel on their recently launched products and look forward to enabling more embedded MCUs designs to come to market.

Express Logic

-Express Logic's ThreadX real-time operating system (RTOS) and middleware enable designers using Atmel SAMA5 processor-based devices to bring their projects to market faster, said John Carbone, Vice President of Marketing, Express Logic. ThreadX fully supports all Atmel ARM processor-based devices, including the new SAMA5D3 family, and is compatible with Atmel Studio 6 and IAR Embedded Workbench IDEs. This solution offers an easy-to-use, intuitive API, full-source code, royalty-free licensing, and excellent documentation and support for a trouble-free design experience and the ability to bring a prototype to market faster.

IAR

IAR Systems offers a complete, powerful development environment for the SAMA5D3 series, said Mats Ullström, Director of Products and Services, IAR Systems. Our high-performance tool suite IAR Embedded Workbench delivers compact, fast performing code; advanced power debugging technology enables developers to test and tune their application for power optimization. We provide complete support for Atmel's ARM and non-ARM based processors, which greatly simplifies migration for customers moving between different processors for different development projects.