Updated toolset supports Renesas' RH850 architecture

Altium recognised a strong interest from its automotive customers to support the high performance Renesas RH850 MCU family through its robust and efficient TASKING VX compiler technology. The TASKING compilers have industry leading code optimisation techniques and proven-in-use track records in automotive applications like powertrain, body control, chassis control, including safety critical applications. TASKING’s multi-core support implementation was jointly developed with a leading Tier-1 supplier in the powertrain area and is regarded as one of the most well-respected and advanced solutions.

A major addition to the toolset is support for the Renesas E1 On-Chip debugging emulator, next to the Instruction Set Simulator debugger. The debugger’s GUI is seamlessly integrated into the Eclipse-based IDE and accessible through the debugger perspective. This brings to the developer a single coding and debugging front-end for RH850 application development, which is both comprehensive and very cost-effective compared to separate solutions.

Harm-André Verhoef, Responsible for TASKING Product Management, Altium, comments: "Altium’s partnership with Renesas has enabled us to extend the tool suite support for the RH850 automotive MCU by support of new derivatives and the support of the Renesas E1 emulator. As independent and automotive focused compiler vendor with proven-in-use technology we serve our customers with the most comprehensive as well as the most integrated development suites, removing the barriers encountered when developing for MCUs with multiple cores, enabling our customers not only to get their applications to market faster, but also to create safer applications and at an unprecedented cost-efficient level."

New code generation optimisations have been added to this new compiler release, such as MIL linking and code compaction (reverse inlining), techniques that have proven to be highly effective in TASKING’s compilers for automotive MCUs. Measurements on a wide range of different application sources, including powertrain applications, show improvements up to 40% in code compactness.

The RH850 MCU family offers rich functional safety and embedded security features needed for new and advanced automotive applications. Altium supports these features and application requirements through its ISO 26262 Support Program. This includes various cost and lead-time efficient solutions to help customers achieve certification for functional safety standards such as ISO 26262 and others. As part of the certification process a manufacturer has to assess the required level of confidence in the utilised software tools such as the TASKING RH850 toolset. Altium enables this through the availability of a Compiler Qualification Kit as well as optional ISO 26262 Compiler Qualification Services.

The VX-toolset for RH850 release v2.2 is available on PC/Windows as of March, with other platforms supported on request. TASKING’s new C compiler for the GTM will be integrated into the toolset later in 2015.