Toolchain improves performance for Atmel 8-bit AVR MCUs

“Embedded systems are growing in complexity and many applications are being migrated to 32-bit MCUs. Despite this, the 8-bit AVR MCUs are continuously being used in many applications for example within automotive, battery management and wireless solutions,” says Thomas Sporrong, Global FAE Manager, IAR Systems. “IAR Systems has a large customer base of developers working with AVR and the company remains committed to supplying world-class tools for embedded developers across the entire range from 8-bit to 32-bit MCUs.”

IAR Embedded Workbench for AVR features world-leading code optimisations that create compact, fast-performing code. The optimisation technology has been further improved in this version, particularly involving speed optimisations of floating-point data types. These improvements enable developers to gain even better performance in applications where optimal execution speed is critical. To achieve the best possible configuration for the application at hand, developers are able to tune the optimisations. With the possibility to set different optimisations for different parts of the code, the right balance between code size and code speed can be achieved.

The previous version 6.60 of IAR Embedded Workbench for AVR introduced support for IAR Systems’ static analysis add-on product C-STAT. Completely integrated in the IAR Embedded Workbench IDE, C-STAT can perform numerous checks for compliance with rules as defined by the coding standards MISRA C:2004, MISRA C++:2008 and MISRA C:2012, as well as rules based on for example CWE (the Common Weakness Enumeration) and CERT C/C++.

By using static analysis, developers can identify errors such as memory leaks, access violations, arithmetic errors and array and string overruns at an early stage to ensure code quality and minimise the impact of errors on the finished product and on the project timeline. With the latest release come further updates to the C-STAT tool, including an added report generator and added pragmas for temporary disabling checks.