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In addition, existing firmware code for all major drive manufacturers was closely examined, and virtually all of the most commonly used instructions were implemented as part of the final instruction set. This means that drive designers will be able to continue to work the way they have with previous generations of less capable MCU on the 'C27x core processor. It also facilitated the development of a family of tools to port existing legacy code to this new platform to reduce ongoing development time and costs. C++ language support for the new processor family is also planned.

Benefit	Feature
Faster time to market by cutting development time in half	Industry's most efficient C engine Easy to use, MUC-like architecture 100 MHz real-time JTAG emulation RTDX with 30Mb/sec bandwidth Full speed code trace & custom ICE
Differentiation for Storage Manufacturers	100+ DSP MIPS allow multitude of servo, interface functions in software Fast context switch improves system response
Lower System Cost	Uniprocessor replaces MCU + DSP Reduced memory requirements from code efficiency World class TI IP and Integration
Improved Manufacturing Yields	Real-time JTAG test diagnostics
Migratable Code for DSP Users	Code compatible with TI C2xLP firmware base

Unique, Industry-Leading Real-Time Emulation and Debug

To speed code development and testing for the 'C27x DSP core, a complete suite of real-time emulation and debugging tools are provided. Of particular importance in the storage world, a JTAG-based visibility port and TI's exclusive Real-Time Data Exchange (RTDX™) technology are provided. These capabilities permit the designer to monitor, analyze and modify code executing at speed without impacting results. Using this window during servo seek, for example, one could modify registers and instructions, stream key data variables or set and execute hardware breakpoints without impacting drive operations. This facility would allow the designer to more quickly isolate firmware bugs and also produce higher quality code in a shorter time. In addition, this windowing capability can actually be used to tune a drive during the manufacturing process to optimize the performance of the 'C27x core for specific head/media combinations.

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