After a successful beta period, Segger Microcontroller has added the new Linker and Link-Time Optimization (LTO) to the latest release build of their powerful cross-platform integrated development environments, Embedded Studio for ARM and Embedded Studio for Cortex-M.
The new product versions deliver on the promise of program size reduction, achieving a significant 5-12% reduction over the previous versions on typical applications, and even higher gains compared to conventional GCC tool chains. These savings are the result of the new LTO, combined with Segger’s Linker and Run-time library emLib-C. Through LTO, it is possible to optimize the entire application, opening the door for optimization opportunities that are simply not available to the compiler.
The Linker adds features such as compression of initialized data and deduplication, as well as the flexibility of dealing with fragmented memory maps that embedded developers have to cope with. Like all Segger software, it is written from scratch for use in deeply embedded computing systems. Additionally, the size required by the included runtime library is significantly lower than that of runtime libraries used by most GCC tool chains.
Segger Microcontroller | www.segger.com
Sponsor this ArticleCircuit Cellar's editorial team comprises professional engineers, technical editors, and digital media specialists. You can reach the Editorial Department at editorial@circuitcellar.com, @circuitcellar, and facebook.com/circuitcellar