IAR Systems announced Tuesday at Design West in San Jose, CA, that GainSpan selected IAR Embedded Workbench as its primary development tool chain for MCU drivers and next-generation chip. “By standardizing on IAR Systems’ embedded software development tool chain, GainSpan will more easily support a wide range of MCUs to communicate with their modules,” IAR publicized a in a release.
It’s an important aspect of a larger plan, IAR’s ARM Strategic Accounts Manager Mike Skrtic said. IAR has overall tool chain standardization goals aimed at giving designers’ more flexibility when choosing MCUs for product development.
Remember: IAR Systems is teamed with Renesas for the RL78 Green Energy Challenge, which is administered by Circuit Cellar. Designers are challenged to transform how the world experiences energy efficiency by developing a unique, low-power application using the RL78 MCU and IAR toolchain.
In other compiler-related news, Microchip Technology announced Monday at Design West its new MPLAB XC C compiler line, which supports its approximately 900 microcontrollers. Microchip’s Joe Drzewiecki said the compilers reduce code size by about 35% and improve code execution speed by about 30%. But you can judge for yourself because Microchip offers 8-, 16-, and 32-bit free editions of MPLAB XC compilers. According to Microchip reps, they are” fully functional and have no license restrictions for commercial use.”
So, if you give MPLAB XC a try, let us know what you think!
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