Altium's TASKING Brand First To Support All Infineon Microcontrollers

Altium introduced support in the TASKING development toolsets for four new microcontrollers from Infineon Technologies, the 8-bit C868, the 16-bit XC161 and XC164 and 32-bit TC1765. Support includes availability of Special Function Register files, debugger connectivity to evaluation boards, and quick-and-easy selection and configuration of the new devices from within the development suites.

SYDNEY, Australia -- February 19, 2002 -- Altium Limited (ASX: ALU), a leading developer of Windows-based electronic design and development software, is pleased to announce that it is the first and only compiler vendor to support all microcontrollers from Infineon Technology. Altium has introduced support in the TASKING development toolsets for four new microcontrollers from Infineon Technologies, the 8-bit C868, the 16-bit XC161 and XC164, and 32-bit TC1765. The support includes the availability of Special Function Register files, debugger connectivity to evaluation boards, and quick-and-easy selection and configuration of the new devices from within the development suites.

Infineon Technologies will announce its new high performance microcontrollers -- which are targeted at industrial and automotive market segments -- at the Embedded Systems Show 2002 in Nuremberg. The C868 is Infineons latest addition to the popular and still growing C500/8051 microcontroller market. The XC161 and XC164 are the new feature-loaded microcontrollers in the C166 family, and are based on the C166S V2 core. The new TriCore TC1765 is a powerful and cost-effective extension of Infineons TriCore microcontroller line.

Since Infineon Technology was founded in April 1999, Altium has been committed to supplying quality development tools for their range of 8-, 16-, 32-bit and DSP architectures. As a result of working closely with Infineon, Altium is now the only vendor to support all microcontrollers from Infineon -- including the four new microcontrollers being announced today.

Frank Grobe, Senior Manager of Infineons Product Marketing Microcontroller group, stated: We are proud to introduce our new products and to get support from our tool partner Altium. The availability of the three TASKING C and C ++ compilers is again a confirmation of Altium's commitment to support Infineon and its customers. With the uniform development solution for our 8-bit, 16-bit, 32-bit as well as DSP microcontroller architectures Altium eases the migration from one architecture to another for our customers."

TASKING, Altiums industry-leading range of tools for embedded software development, offers an integrated software development environment that enables developers to take advantage of the complete range of Infineon microcontrollers by providing all the capabilities needed for application development from project management, editing, and program building to compiling, optimizing, and debugging. Their software development toolsets consisting of the award winning TASKING Embedded Development Environment (EDE), highly optimizing C and C++/EC++ compilers, assembler, linker/locator, and the CrossView Pro debugger. TASKING toolsets have three debugger execution environments available for the various Infineon microcontrollers -- the ROM monitor debugger, the simulator debugger, and the OCDS (JTAG on-chip debugging interface) debugger -- and delivers advanced debugging capabilities to ensure developers can directly verify target applications and graphically detect errors.

By working closely with chip manufacturers to support new architectures as soon as they are available, Altium continues to break down the barriers to innovation and technological advancement, and provide every electronic engineer and embedded system developer with easy access to the best possible design tools.

Availability

The TASKING TriCore, C16x/XC16x and 8051/C500/C868 Software Development Tools are now available for PC/Windows, PC/Linux and SUN/Solaris.

For more product information, visit www.tasking.com or contact your local Altium Sales and Support Center.

About Altium Limited

Altium Limited (ASX: ALU), trading as Protel International Limited (ASX: PRI) prior to August 6, 2001, is a leading global developer and supplier of desktop electronic design automation (EDA) and embedded software design tools for the Microsoft Windows environment.

Since the Companys foundation in 1985 and its release of the worlds first Microsoft Windows--based EDA tool in 1991, Altium has continued to apply the most advanced software design methods to provide powerful, easy-to-use and affordable design software to engineers and electronics designers worldwide.

Altiums current product brands include Protel, P-CAD, TASKING, Accolade, CircuitMaker and CAMtastic!. These products offer tailored solutions covering a range of hardware and software design processes.

Altium is headquartered in Sydney, Australia, and operates a number of sales and support offices in Australia, the United States, Japan and Europe -- as well as maintaining a large reseller network in all other major markets. More information about the Company and its products and services may be obtained from our new website at www.altium.com.

Altium, Altium Total Support, Protel, P-CAD, TASKING, Accolade, CircuitMaker, CAMtastic!, Situs and Topological Autorouting and their respective logos are trademarks or registered trademarks of Altium Limited. All other registered or unregistered trademarks referenced herein are the property of their respective owners, and no trademark rights to the same is claimed.

Altium Local Media Contact

Janice Hughes
Hughes Communications, Inc.
15 Oak Tree Lane
Lyme, CT 06371 USA
Telephone: +1 860 434 3782
Fax: +1 860 434 3781
Email: janice@hughescom.net

Corporate Media Contact

Jessica Maxwell
ALTIUM LIMITED
Level3, 12a Rodborough Road
Frenchs Forest, NSW 2086
Australia
http://www.altium.com
Telephone: +61 2 99757710
Fax: +61 2 99757720
Email: jessica.maxwell@altium.com.au