Segger Microcontroller Systems

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SEGGER Microcontroller Systems

Type of co.	Private
Founded	1991
Headquarters	Massachusetts, United States and Hilden, Germany
Website	www.segger.com www.segger-us.com

SEGGER Microcontroller Systems develops and distributes software development tools and ANSI C software components (middleware).

[edit] History

Segger was founded in Hilden Germany by Rolf Segger in 1991. At that point he already had aproximatley ten years of experience programming for embedded applications. embOS (Segger's RTOS) was developed for the NEC K0 series of microcontrollers in 1993. In its infancy, embOS was written entirely in assembly. Between 1994 and 1995 the real time operating system was greatly improved, based upon numerous projects and experiences. It was redesigned and rewritten in ANSI "C", improving its versatility, speed and minimum memory consumption. Internally, it was used for different MPU's: 64180, x86, V25... In 1996 embOS was now lean, mean, and robust. The decision to release this product for all CPUs was then made.

In 1997 Segger expanded its software offering by introducing an embedded graphics package and GUI (graphical user interface) called emWin. During the next year, this module was enhanced with development and cooperation of a major automotive company.

Then in 1999 Segger and Mitsubishi Europe started development of the Flasher M16C. The first version of the Flasher and widely distributed color graphics module was released this same year.

Over the years, Segger added a wide range of features to their existing products and to provide drop in solutions for their customers, ported embOS to a variety of CPUs and compilers. In August 2002 SEGGER presented the first emFile (FAT12, FAT16, and FAT32 compatible file system) version supporting Mulitmedia cards. In 2003 more device drivers were added.

In January of 2004 SEGGER released embOS Simulation allowing the developer to write and test the application program without the need of any functional hardware. In March of 2004 SEGGER came out with a new JTAG debug interface for ARM cores, j-link, supporting all ARM7/9 cores.

In 2005 Segger opened their US office in Westminster Massachusetts.

[edit] Competitors

Today, their competitors include Green Hills Software (makers of the Integrity and velOSity RTOS), QNX Inc. (makers of the QNX Neutrino system), LynuxWorks (makers of the LynxOS RTOS) and to a lesser extent the real-time and embedded product lines of Microsoft (largely Windows CE and Windows NT Embedded) and various products based on Linux made by MontaVista, Timesys and others.