February 2005, Issue 175

A Look at the M16C Lineup

RENESAS TOOLS

As I’ve said before, tool availability is the most important factor in choosing whether or not to use a manufacturer’s device. Many manufacturers are catching on to this fact. When a manufacturer has a line of devices based on the same core with a code-compatible growth path, tools for one device are applicable to many. Tool development costs then can be amortized over the complete line, giving you lower entry costs and real value. Having flash memory and USB connectivity have allowed Renesas to create new low-cost tools.

Microcontroller reprogramability and a reduced bill of materials for hardware tools really make me sit up and take notice. It’s easy to see why Renesas is the largest supplier of 8- and 16-bit microcontrollers in the world.

Renesas offers a complete line of development tools: real-time OS, programmers, simulators, emulators, IDEs, C/C++ compilers, and sample code. For instance, you can find 32-/64-bit arithmetic functions (addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division), conversions (ASCII, BCD, hex, binary, and floating point), sorting, searching, and trigonometric functions (sine, cosine, tangent, inverse, root, power, exponential, and log).