Re: STM32 ARM toolset advice?

On Tue, 7 Oct 2008 14:19:09 -0700, Mark Borgerson
<mborgerson@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

In article <81ene4hsatqaphkmp01cikmpk9l7ana9qi@xxxxxxx>,
nobody@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx says...
On Tue, 7 Oct 2008 08:01:31 -0700, "John Speth" <johnspeth@xxxxxxxxx>
wrote:

(Not to start a tools war but)

I'm about to start a project that will use the STM32 ARM from ST. IAR and
Keil both supply high quality tool sets for the STM32. I've used both
toolsets' evaluation copies. I believe I'd be satisfied buying any one over
the other.

Can anyone make any comments why one might be better than the other?

At this point, it's a flip of the coin. I'd like to hear some practical
opinions of current users to help tip the scales.


Keil has been bought by ARM, and AFAIK they now use the compiler from
ARM. Apparently this compiler generates the best code for ARM's CPUs.
GCC Generates quite good code for the ARM these days. The biggest
drawback is the use of newlib. Rowley provides a nice IDE with GCC,
and their own library, which removes the one disadvantage of using
GCC. Their product is also available for Windows and Linux.


One of the biggest problems I ran into with GCC-ARM when using the
linux libraries for the TRITON boards, is that floating point operations
are executed as kernel interrupts (Undefined Instruction generating
jumps to a floating point emulator, I think.) I think it turned
out to be several times slower than the IAR floating point library
that runs in user mode.

I suppose it makes a big difference whether your ARM code is going
to run under Linux or on the bare silicon. All my IAR experience
is on ARM7TDMI without an OS, and all my GCC experience is
on a StrongArm chip under linux. I'd love to transition to
an RTOS with either system, but haven't found the free time to
get either MicroC/OSII or FreeRtos running with either set
of hardware.

Look at http://www.linuxdevices.com/articles/AT5920399313.html on how
to get much faster ARM floating point under Linux. The speedup was
over 10x for the floating point benchmarks used in the article. There
was also a big spped improvment going from around 2.x gcc to around
3.x gcc. I cannot recall the exact versions. Someone rewrote the ARM
floating point library for gcc in optimized assembler.
Most of the comparisons floating around between the comercial ARM
compilers and gcc, compares with old gcc 2.x compilers. We are nou at
gcc 4.x, which is MUCH faster than the old 2.x versions. It also helps
to enable even the minimum level of optimization in gcc.

Regards
Anton

.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: STM32 ARM toolset advice?
    ... GCC Generates quite good code for the ARM these days. ... linux libraries for the TRITON boards, is that floating point operations ... I did find that an AT91SAM7S at 16Mhz using the IAR libraries, ...
    (comp.arch.embedded)
  • Re: STM32 ARM toolset advice?
    ... GCC Generates quite good code for the ARM these days. ... linux libraries for the TRITON boards, is that floating point operations ... I did find that an AT91SAM7S at 16Mhz using the IAR libraries, ...
    (comp.arch.embedded)
  • Elf loader crash while zero-filling .bss
    ... I am relatively new into kernel hacking and I am trying to get Linux ... running on a ARM based SBC. ... gcc version and compiler are the following: ...
    (Linux-Kernel)
  • Re: Opinions on Rowley CrossWorks for ARM
    ... I'd like to hear some opinions regarding the Rowley CrossWorks for ARM toolchain. ... I am in the process of evaluating ARM toolchains which are to be used in university classes/projects. ... GCC + GDB/Insight and Rowley Crossworks for ARM and have to say that I liked their toolchain best. ... who spend vast amounts of time and money on development of their software tools must be targeting their soft processors for use in desktops or servers. ...
    (comp.arch.embedded)
  • Re: STM32 ARM toolset advice?
    ... Keil has been bought by ARM, and AFAIK they now use the compiler from ... GCC Generates quite good code for the ARM these days. ... Their product is also available for Windows and Linux. ... out to be several times slower than the IAR floating point library ...
    (comp.arch.embedded)