Abstract: As regards competitiveness, flexibility to change from one
target platform to another is decisive for application developers,
especially in the area of embedded systems. The Architecture Neutral
Distribution Format (ANDF), developed and evaluated within OMI (Open
Microprocessor Systems Initiative) has turned out to be a key
technology to improve this flexibility. The basic idea is to break
compilers into front-ends (for specific languages) and back-ends (for
specific microprocessors) where both pieces easily could be replaced
by a "plug-and-play" compatible component.  Recently, the ANDF
technology has been applied to standard embedded application domains
and even to safety critical applications in several ESPRIT-projects
with clearly visible benefits for developing time, costs and code
reliance. The availability of compiler back-ends (installers) turned
out to be the most crucial part of this technology. During the
OMI/SAFE and OMI/FAME projects, a new generation of compiler generator
tools has been applied, which address the generation of compiler
back-ends. With such a back-end generator tool - developed at the
University of Karlsruhe - an installer for a specific platform can be
provided with much less effort than before. This approach also allows
to build configurable installers which is of great importance for
families of microprocessors and for DSPs.  In this paper we will show
first practical results of the OMI/SAFE and OMI/FAME projects, with
emphasis on measurements of human resources on the one hand and
efficiency of the produced code on the other hand, compared to
standard compilers.