AdaCore Announces GNAT Pro for Nucleus OS

Ada development support for Nucleus brings reliability to high-volume, embedded computing

BOSTON, October 28, 2008 - Embedded Systems Conference - AdaCore, provider of the highest quality Ada tools and support, today announced the availability of GNAT Pro for Nucleus® OS, the embedded operating system from Mentor Graphics. Nucleus OS offers a highly configurable kernel and utility extensions, making it a popular choice for small, high-volume embedded computing applications where low cost and high reliability are critical. With GNAT Pro for Nucleus OS, embedded system developers can increase their productivity through the reliability of the Ada language, the frontline support from AdaCore, and the capabilities of the GNAT Pro toolchain.

Nucleus OS provides an efficient, fast, deterministic and highly configurable operating system environment. Since the Nucleus OS is directly linked with the final application, the memory footprint is minimized, as only those parts of the operating system or utilities that are needed are linked with the application. This in turn allows companies to choose lower-cost processors in markets where the volume of application delivery could be in the millions. At such a high volume, software failure is unacceptable, and Ada is an ideal language where reliability must be guaranteed. GNAT Pro fully implements Ada and also provides multi-language support for parts of the application that may be written in C or other languages.

“GNAT Pro for Nucleus OS expands Ada’s availability into industries requiring hard real-time response and very small memory footprint, such as mobile handsets, consumer electronics, or telematics/infotainment,” said Neil Henderson, general manager, Embedded Systems Division, Mentor Graphics. “Ada is a well known language in the areas of safety and security. Offering Ada development support for Nucleus OS adds another layer of reliability to these small, high-volume systems that our customers develop.”

“AdaCore has a long history supporting embedded operating systems in applications where safety and reliability are key concerns,” said Robert Dewar, President and CEO of AdaCore. “We believe that combining the flexibility of Nucleus OS with the reliability of the Ada language will greatly benefit our customers, particularly those developing products in high-volume industries.”

Pricing and Availability
The GNAT Pro for Nucleus OS is available immediately for the ARM embedded processor. Please contact AdaCore (info@adacore.com) for the latest information on pricing and supported configurations.

About GNAT Pro
The GNAT Pro development environment, available on more platforms than any other Ada toolset, combines industry-leading technology with an expert support infrastructure and provides a natural solution for organizations that need to create reliable, efficient, and maintainable code. GNAT Pro is the first-to-market implementation of the Ada 2005 standard, allowing users to take advantage of the many enhancements in areas such as object-oriented programming, real-time support, and predefined libraries.

At the heart of GNAT Pro is a full-featured, multi-language development environment complete with libraries, bindings, and a range of supplementary tools. All GNAT Pro technology is distributed with complete source code. GNAT Pro is based on the widely used GCC technology, is subjected to a rigorous quality assurance process, and is backed by rapid and expert support service.

About Nucleus Operating System
Nucleus OS was designed exclusively for real-time performance. It was conceived from the ground up for resource-constrained devices (frequency and memory) and for environments where squeezing out every cycle per watt was paramount. Thus, developers were able to focus on differentiating their products while confident their OS foundation would not adversely impact the system’s overall performance.

Nucleus OS has evolved into a complete operating system composed of kernel services, extensions, and APIs. Componentizing Nucleus OS into logically related functionality not only provides significant cost savings (customers don’t have to pay for what they don’t use), but also provides an easy route for reducing the amount of ROM and RAM required.

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 about $850 million and employs approximately 4,500 people worldwide. Corporate headquarters are located at 8005 S.W. Boeckman Road, Wilsonville, Oregon 97070-7777. World Wide Web site: http://www.mentor.com/.

About AdaCore
Founded in 1994, AdaCore is the leading provider of commercial software solutions for Ada, a state-of-the-art programming language designed for large, long-lived applications where safety, security, and reliability are critical. AdaCore's flagship product is the GNAT Pro development environment, which comes with expert on-line support and is available on more platforms than any other Ada technology. AdaCore has an extensive world-wide customer base; see http://www.adacore.com/home/company/customers/ for further information.

Ada and GNAT Pro see a growing usage in high-integrity and safety-certified applications, including commercial aircraft avionics, military systems, air traffic management/control, railroad systems, and medical devices, and in security-sensitive domains such as financial services.

AdaCore has North American headquarters in New York and European headquarters in Paris. www.adacore.com

Nucleus is a registered trademark of Mentor Graphics Corporation. All other product and service names mentioned are the trademarks of their respective companies.

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