IAR Systems has announced the launch of Version 5.10 of IAR Embedded Workbench® for AVR®, which now supports the new AVR XMEGA™ family of 8-bit microcontrollers from Atmel®. This latest release is the result of a close partnership with Atmel during their development of XMEGA, and consolidates the position of IAR Embedded Workbench as the leading high-end C/C++ compiler for AVR.
IAR Embedded Workbench for AVR was originally developed by IAR Systems working closely in parallel with Atmels development of the AVR architecture, and this ensured maximum utilisation of the cores capabilities and maximum code generation performance. This co-design initiative enabled IAR Embedded Workbench to establish a reputation as the professional development tool of choice for AVR developers – meeting their exacting standards for the performance and ease-of-use of their tools, as well as providing excellent third party support. The strong partnership between the two companies has continued, and ensures that IAR Systems can provide ongoing support for the latest devices and technology from Atmel.
“The close relationship between our two companies has resulted in what we believe is a world-beating combination of parts and tools,” said Ingar Fredriksen Product Marketing Director at Atmel. “IAR Systems has been a very important partner for Atmel for many years, and it was natural that we should turn to them again when we began to design the XMEGA. Our customers will particularly appreciate the professional tool chain support offered by IAR Embedded Workbench.”
“We have seen a strong demand for AVR tools over the past 10 years,” said Mats Ullström, Product Director at IAR Systems. “The advanced features of the new AVR XMEGA are expected to bring even greater success for the AVR architecture.”
As embedded applications become increasingly more complex, the larger and more efficient XMEGA offers an ideal upgrade path for the many existing AVR users, as well as an attractive alternative for new users. XMEGA has been specifically designed to improve system performance while keeping power consumption extremely low. A DMA controller removes data transfer bottlenecks and an innovative Event System provides predictable behaviour with no event latency. The 2nd generation picoPower™ technology allows the devices to operate from just 1.6V, with up to 32 MIPS at 32MHz and Flash memory size range from 16 KB to 384 KB. The XMEGA devices are general purpose microcontrollers that are well suited for a variety of battery-powered applications, including audio systems, ZigBee®, power tools, medical, board controllers, networking, metering, optical transceivers, motor control, and white goods.
IAR Systems initially developed IAR Embedded Workbench for AVR (originally called IAR Embedded Workbench for AT90) in parallel with Atmels development of the first AT90 devices, which were later re-named AVR. The goal was to ensure that the AVR core would become well suited for C programming, and that the compiler could produce code that brought the device to its full potential. Ever since the first release, IAR Systems has continued to work closely together with Atmel to make sure that the tight coupling between hardware and tools remains solid when new technology and new features are introduced. The latest development in Atmels AVR family, XMEGA, is no exception. IAR Embedded Workbench makes full use of the new register layout to produce small and fast code that saves execution cycles and memory storage space. In addition, the new EEPROM handler is directly supported by the compiler.
Anyone who has previously used IAR Embedded Workbench for AVR will be very familiar with the new tools. Even though much has changed beneath the surface, the user interface, commands and compiler features remain the same.
Further information about XMEGA is available on the Atmel Website: www.atmel.com/xmega
Further information on IAR Embedded Workbench for AVR is available of the IAR Systems Website: www.iar.com/ewavr
