Press Release

February 6, 2002

IAR Systems and Hitachi close another deal on MakeApp device driver development technology

IAR Systems today announced that Hitachi Micro-Systems Europe Ltd. has placed another order on IAR MakeApp™ device driver development technology for the Hitachi H8S devices. This is the second MakeApp order from Hitachi in a short period of time, and it strengthens IAR MakeApp as the leading device driver development technology, and at the same time eases migration to the Hitachi H8S devices for product developers. 

IAR MakeApp is the leading device driver development tool on the world market. This tool reduces development time and eases migration to new microprocessor devices by several weeks, thus shortening time to market and cutting development costs for developers of industrial, automotive and consumer products.

In this deal, Hitachi licenses the IAR MakeApp technology from IAR Systems. IAR Systems will also adapt the technology for the Hitachi H8S microcontroller device. Furthermore, Hitachi licenses the right to use the IAR MakeApp Software Development Kit (SDK) for in-house development of future MakeApp products that support additional Hitachi H8S micro-controller devices. IAR MakeApp for Hitachi H8S will use the latest generation of IAR MakeApp technology. This new generation includes new functionality such as a graphical drawing editor, component browser, project report generation, and report viewer.

Using the MakeApp tool, software developers and electronics engineers can configure the highly complex H8S microcontrollers using a simple point-and-click mechanism in a graphical user interface. The tool will then generate a complete software library in ANSI-C source code to initialize, control and manipulate the features in the microcontroller from an application program.

“By providing IAR MakeApp for additional Hitachi microcontroller devices, IAR Systems has further strengthened the position as the leading device driver development tool provider on the world market”, says Lars-Erik Stenkil, Business Development Manager at IAR Systems in Jönköping. “Furthermore, Hitachi customers get an easy and highly cost-effective migration path to the new H8S device,” he continues. “Customers found the previous version of MakeApp an invaluable tool for developing peripheral-rich microcontrollers with high performance. The next generation of MakeApp will allow customers to quickly utilize the performance and flexibility of the H8S controllers from Hitachi,” says Steve Gaines, Product Marketing Manager at Hitachi Europe Ltd.

About IAR Systems
By focusing on the embedded systems industry, IAR Systems has reached the position of leading supplier of software development tools for embedded microcontrollers. Since the company was founded in 1983, IAR has worked in close cooperation with the world’s major chip manufacturers to develop a wide range of programming tools supporting a large number of chip architectures. The tools today consist of highly efficient C and EC++ compilers in the IAR Embedded Workbench™ development environment, the device driver wizard IAR MakeApp™ for graphical configuration and initialization of the chip and creation of complete device drivers, and the IAR visualSTATE® graphic programming tool with a patented technology to generate validated and small production-ready code. IAR Systems also provides a total solution for Bluetooth™ protocol stacks and applications, from development of Bluetooth devices to qualification. IAR Design Services injects engineering expertise and experience into embedded system projects. It contributes to IAR’s mission to reduce the development time for embedded systems and accelerate time to market. IAR Systems has offices in the US, UK, Japan, Germany, Denmark, and Sweden. More information is available at www.iar.com

About Hitachi
Hitachi, Ltd., headquartered in Tokyo, Japan, is one of the world's leading global electronics companies, with fiscal 2000 (ended March 31, 2001) consolidated sales of 8,417 billion yen ($67.9 billion*). The company manufactures and markets a wide range of products, including computers, semiconductors, consumer products, and power and industrial equipment.

The Electronic Components Group (ECG) of Hitachi Europe Ltd., has operations throughout Europe, providing sales, marketing, technical support, and research and development for key components in the fields of smart cards, communications, automotive, displays and system LSI. Products include the SuperH™ RISC microprocessors, the H8 microcontroller family, smart card controllers, TFT displays, memories (Flash, SRAM), transistors and diodes, and network products. More information is available at www.hitachi-eu.com.

For additional information, contact:
Lars-Erik Stenkil, Business
Development Manager, 
IAR Systems, phone: +46 36 34 5000, mobile phone: +46 708 120606, 
e-mail: lars-erik.stenkil@iar.se