Multicore debugging added to ARM development tools

26th February 2014

IAR Systems

Nat Bowers

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Multicore debugging and automatic NEON vectorisation functionalities have been added to the enhanced version of IAR Embedded Workbench for ARM. Version 7.10 of the development tool offers new functionality and support for the latest ARM devices, which help to significantly strengthen the development of complex applications.

Because multicore applications interact in complex ways, they are often challenging to debug. The latest version of IAR Embedded Workbench for ARM features support for multicore debugging in the comprehensive C-SPY Debugger. Making it considerably easier to find program errors during development, this enables developers to simultaneously debug two or more identical cores (symmetric multicore processing (SMP)) or two cores with different architectures (asymmetric multicore processing (AMP)) in one single development environment.

The support for NEON vectorisation is critical for top performance when working with applications based on ARM Cortex-A processors, especially with multimedia and signal processing applications. With its own execution pipelines and a register bank that is distinct from the ARM register bank, ARM NEON is a single instruction multiple data architecture extension developed by ARM and implemented as part of the ARM processor. Since developers can sometimes automatically vectorise the code, this enables them to achieve faster application response time, improve application battery lifetime and further meet the market demands for low cost and low power.

Anders Lundgren, Product Manager, IAR Systems, comments: “The interest in and the availability of embedded multicore processors are on the rise and adding multicore debugging technology brings even higher value to our customers who already benefit from our full-featured C-SPY Debugger with breakthrough technologies like high-resolution power debugging and advanced trace. Complementing this with automatic code generation for the NEON vector engine also shows our strong commitment to increased code productivity on the compiler side.”

“The demand for complex applications is one of the strongest market drivers today. Thanks to our close cooperation we are leading the way with ARM, and maintain our position as the dominating supplier of world-leading development tools for ARM,” comments Stefan Skarin, CEO, IAR Systems.

Version 7.10 of IAR Embedded Workbench for ARM is available now.