IAR Systems incorporates power debugging as standard in IAR Embedded Workbench

The new tools provide the capability to correlate current sampling alongside program execution, allowing analysis of the software's influence on power consumption and providing developers with the means to optimize source code to minimize power consumption.

We are working with some of the largest suppliers of low-power microcontrollers in the industry, and have been for many years. It is a natural progression for us to extend our software analysis technology to include power debugging. We are providing software developers with the tools to tune their source code to minimize power consumption, this becoming a third dimension in addition to code size and speed, said Mats Ullström, Product Director, IAR Systems.

The power measurements can be visualized in various ways in IAR Embedded Workbench. In its simplest form a power log window displays the measured current and the time and location of the program counter when it was sampled. This gives the developer detailed insight into an application's power consumption.

An overview is provided as a graph of the power consumption presented in the timeline window in IAR Embedded Workbench, where the call stack, interrupt activity and variable values can be displayed simultaneously. This allows power consumption to be mapped against key events in the program's execution and the developer can easily see what events triggers higher power consumption.

Power profiling is done on function level, letting the developer know how much power is consumed during the execution of each function, and what the average current is during its execution. The power profiling utility provides insight to where efforts should be done to optimize for lower power consumption.

IAR Systems has pioneered power debugging functionality for microcontroller software development tools, and continues to innovate tools for the fast growing low-power segment of the embedded industry.