Earlier today, IAR Systems has announced the release of version 6.40 of Embedded Workbench for ARM. This new version introduces several new features, enhancements and optimizations.
The enhancements include a new source browser and text editor, with functionality such as auto-completion, code folding, block selection, block indentation, bracket matching, and zooming. Word/paragraph navigation have also been improved.
IAR Systems also enhanced the compiler with improvements to the stack usage analysis functionality that provides calculations of the maximum stack depth for each call graph root and new features such as support for C++ source code and recursion. A new linker directive check can be used to calculate the stack usage at link time to verify that the used stack space does not exceed the allocated memory. The inline assembler has also been improved and expanded with a large number of new operand constraints and modifiers.
In a previous post “Green Hills MULTI 6.0 Compiler Improves ARM MCU Performance by up to 40%“, IAR v6.10.5 compiler was shown to produce the slowest code (vs Green Hills MULTI 6 and Keil uVision v4.20), but the company announced a 40% improvement on “standard industry benchmark” for code compiled for Cortex-M4 core compared to the previous IAR version, which should make it now more or less equal to Green Hills compiler. Compared to the gcc compiler, code generated by IAR Systems C/C++ compiler is (up to) 50% faster. The company also claims to get “extraordinary high scores for other ARM Cortex-cores including Cortex-A8” without giving benchmark numbers or improvements in percentage.
IAR Systems Workbench for ARM v6.40 added support for the new ARM Cortex-M0+ core as well as the new high-end cores ARM Cortex-R5, Cortex-R7, Cortex-A7, and Cortex-A15.
Support for I-jet hardware debugging probe has also been added to the new version of Workbench. This probe allows finer power measurements for better power consumption optimization.
You can find more information about IAR Embedded Workbench for ARM and download an evaluation version at www.iar.com/ewarm.
Jean-Luc started CNX Software in 2010 as a part-time endeavor, before quitting his job as a software engineering manager, and starting to write daily news, and reviews full time later in 2011.
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