Nexus 5001(TM) Forum Adopting IEEE Std 1149.7

PISCATAWAY, NJ--(Marketwire - February 10, 2010) - Nexus 5001™ Forum, an industry consortium supporting the IEEE-ISTO 5001™ (Nexus 5001™) standard for debug in high-performance microcontrollers, processors, and system-on-chip devices, announced today it has adopted the recently ratified IEEE Std 1149.7 as a supported feature in its 2010 update to the Nexus 5001 Standard. Nexus 5001™ has supported IEEE Std 1149.1 (JTAG) since its initial specification release; support for IEEE 1149.7, as a successor to JTAG, will be included, along with other currently supported interfaces, in the next version of the Nexus 5001™ Standard, planned for a 2010 release. IEEE Std 1149.7 was adopted for the upcoming Nexus 5001™ specification as it provides key functionalities that are complementary to extending Nexus-based debug capabilities, while maintaining backwards compatibility for current users.

"It is an important step forward that the 2010 IEEE-ISTO 5001™ Nexus specification will incorporate new debug features and interfaces supported by the IEEE 1149.7 specification," says Todd Collins, Nexus 5001™ Forum Chairman. "By supporting 1149.7, Nexus 5001™ provides improved debug features with a variety of interface options and modes, including higher performance yet lower pin count debug ports that are needed in many areas of the microcontroller/microprocessor market."

"We are excited to see the adoption of IEEE 1149.7 for Nexus 5001™," said David Kleidermacher, Chief Technology Officer at Green Hills Software. "Green Hills has long supported the adoption of industry standards for all aspects of embedded development. IEEE 1149.7 allows Green Hills to provide new levels of visibility and run control to our industry leading debug solutions, and backwards compatibility with our current JTAG solutions based on IEEE 1149.1 means customers will have an easy migration path to adopt this new technology. We look forward to developing new capabilities based around this new standard."

The Nexus IEEE-ISTO 5001™ specification is an IEEE standard for debugging interfaces of embedded systems and processors. It was developed to provide extended debug capability, particularly when used for data intensive analysis operations such as trace and calibration. Nexus 5001™ openly defines debug interfaces and protocols that are supported by a wide variety of tool vendors across a range of processor cores.

For Nexus 5001 users, IEEE Std 1149.7 offers significant new capabilities, including:

--  High performance, vendor-neutral port interfaces which can provide a
    standards based gateway to integration with other standards based debug
    and test capabilities (ex: IEEE Std 1149.1, IEEE Std 1500, IEEE P1587,
    IEEE-ISTO 5001™ Nexus) required at both the chip and board level.
--  Backward compatibility with existing IEEE Std 1149.1 JTAG devices and
    IP by emulation of JTAG interfaces, allowing support of existing JTAG
    test systems, or use where more advanced features are not normally
    required.
--  Reduced (2-wire) pin configurations with pin savings that provide
    higher performance JTAG compatible test and debug functionality at a
    lower pin cost.
--  Improved efficiency in multi-chip or multi-core environments via low
    latency parallel data (4-wire or 2-wire star) interface topologies
    compatible with current Nexus Auxiliary port based configurations,
    and improved serial bypass delay capabilities in current JTAG based
    Nexus interface configurations.
--  Standardized handling of debug logic power conditions via selectable
    power mode controls to power down test and debug features for low power
    devices
--  BDX (Background Data Transport) and CDX (custom data transport)
    transfer modes for higher debug data transfer and channel performance.

About Nexus 5001 Forum

Nexus 5001™ Forum is a program of the IEEE Industry Standards and Technology Organization (IEEE-ISTO) and was established in 1999 to support the use and proliferation of the IEEE-ISTO 5001™ standard. Spanning the semiconductor, development tools and automotive electronics industries, Nexus 5001™ Forum membership comprise industry leading silicon suppliers, tools developers, IP companies, and end users. Initially focused on the stringent requirements of microprocessor debug tools for automotive powertrain applications, Nexus 5001™ Forum has evolved its overall goal to enable the standards based development of state-of-the-art, easy-to-use, and high-performance IP, microcontroller, processor, and SoC instrumentation and debug tools. Membership in the Nexus 5001™ Forum is open to any interested party involved in instrumentation or debug related work. Those interested in participating or wishing to download IEEE-ISTO 5001™ are encouraged to visit the Nexus Forum online at: www.nexus5001.org.

Contact Information: Media Contacts Stephen Lau Product Manager for Emulation Technology Texas Instruments +1 281 274-3705 s-lau2@ti.com Jeff Pane Program Manager Nexus 5001™ Forum +1 732 465-6605 jeff.pane@ieee-isto.org