Accelerated Technology's Nucleus Products Support the MIPS32 24KE Family of Processor Cores

MOBILE, Ala., December 6, 2005 -Accelerated Technology®, a Mentor Graphics division (Nasdaq: MENT), today announced that the Nucleus® real-time operating system (RTOS) and the Eclipse-powered Nucleus EDGE software development environment now support the MIPS32® 24KE™ processor core family from MIPS Technologies, Inc. The combined software and hardware provide embedded systems developers with a complete solution for the efficient and cost-effective development of voice and speech processing, digital audio, graphics, video and imaging applications.

"Our customers need to get to market quickly and on budget in order to excel in cost-sensitive and fiercely competitive digital consumer markets," said Jack Browne, vVice Ppresident, marketing for MIPS Technologies. "Leveraging the speed and scalability of the Accelerated Technology Nucleus products with the high performance and flexibility of our 24KE cores enables us to deliver the solutions they require."

The Nucleus software support for the MIPS32 24KE cores includes the Nucleus PLUS RTOS, a fast, scalable and robust real-time kernel containing the Nucleus SHELL command line interface. Additionally, the Nucleus EDGE software consists of a seamlessly integrated development environment (IDE), compiler, debugger and system profiler. Developers using MIPS cores can use this all-inclusive environment to create embedded systems from start to finish.

"The 24KE cores with added DSP functionality offer a very compelling solution for the latest generation of video and audio applications," said Glen Johnson, product marketing manager, Accelerated Technology, a Mentor Graphics division. "Our Nucleus products support for this advanced processor core family helps software developers using this device better compete in a fast-growing, very competitive marketplace." 

The MIPS32 24KE family of cores is the first to integrate the MIPS® DSP Application-Specific Extension (ASE). The 24KE core family leverages the high performance 24K™ microarchitecture and efficiently adds DSP functionality while reducing overall SoC die area, cost, and power consumption.

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 responsive user interface permits users to interact with the GUI while the Nucleus EDGE software is busy performing background tasks, including 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. This advanced build system is fully integrated with the MIPS SDE compiler, and also allows other command line-based tools to be plugged in.

Adhering to the Eclipse open platform debug paradigm, 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.  This allows them to start coding earlier in the development cycle. The MIPSsim™ instruction set simulator and Meta Debug Interface (MDI)-based on-chip debugging via JTAG then allows users to run their "real" optimized embedded code from the same environment.

To address MIPS Technologies' target markets, the Nucleus EDGE software supports MDI-compliant connections including the FS2 System Navigator and the MIPSsim Instruction Set Simulator (ISS), as well as other EJTAG probes such as the OCD family provided by Macraigor Systems.

Pricing and Availability
The Nucleus embedded software is sold with source code and without royalty fees. Licenses for the Nucleus RTOS software begin at $12,495 and 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 info@acceleratedtechnology.com.

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 aboutover $700 million and employs approximately 3,950 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 software design tools, evaluation, test and verification software, kernels, middleware and Eclipse-based development tools. For more information, please visit www.acceleratedtechnology.com or e-mail us at info@acceleratedtechnology.com.