Santa Barbara, CA — (press release excerpt) — Green Hills Software today announced what is claimed to be the industry's most efficient optimizing C/C++ compiler and assembler for the ARM family of microprocessor cores. The new compiler supports target devices running Linux.

“It offers better performance and smaller code size than ARM's compiler, and far better size/performance than the GNU (free) compiler,” said John Carbone, VP of marketing for Green Hills Software.

The new compiler and assembler, part of version 3.6 of the company's MULTI 2000 Integrated Development Environment, greatly simplify the development of fast, compact code for embedded systems utilizing the ARM6, ARM7, ARM9, ARM9E, and ARM10 processor families, and the ARM architecture-compliant Intel StrongARM and XScale microarchitectures.

Green Hills' new compiler outperformed ARM's ADS 1.2 compiler on a battery of programs collected by Green Hills Software over its 20 years in the compiler business. These programs include synthetic benchmarks like SPEC, Stanford, Linpack and Dhrystone, but also customer code spanning a variety of real-world embedded applications. On the full set of tests, Green Hills Software's ARM 3.6 compiler generated code that was 17% smaller than that generated by the ADS 1.2 compiler in ARM Mode and 10% smaller in Thumb Mode. Both compilers were set to use optimizations that produce minimum code size.

The MULTI IDE provides a comprehensive set of capabilities for software development using Windows, Solaris, Linux, or HP/UX host platforms. The MULTI IDE features a graphical program builder, source-level debugger, window-oriented editor, run-time error checker, version control system, performance profiler, optimizing ARM/Thumb profiler (CodeBalance), and real-time RTOS EventAnalyzer.

The MULTI Development Environment for the ARM core, including a C/C++ compiler, assembler, linker, and instruction set simulator, costs $5900 (single-seat developer's license) for a node-locked license, and $8900 for a floating license.

 
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