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munger
munger
Associate III
June 21, 2013
Question

Development Tools

  • June 21, 2013
  • 22 replies
  • 3567 views
Posted on June 21, 2013 at 14:49

Hi,

I am starting a new project using a STM32F051K4U6. I have not used an ARM ever before, I've mostly used 8 bit micros, lots of MSP430 work in the last few years.

I am very familiar with IAR EW, been using it for 10 years. So, of course I looked there first when deciding on what to use for the STM32 processor. The EWARM is sooo damn expensive! It's like $3400 - $7000 or something like that.

I've gotten pricing for some of the others, Tasking, Keil, I forget what else, they are less certainly but is it worth it to use the IAR as I have used it so much? My knee-jerk reaction is that it is probably *not* worth it ... I've learned plenty of development environments, I can probably learn another.

I'd appreciate any feedback regarding this.

Thanks.

Mike

#eclipse-gcc-gdb #eclipse #iar
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emalund
emalund
Associate III
June 26, 2013
Posted on June 26, 2013 at 14:49

<i>How about using make files ?</i>

I would, if I could, but as a consultant you rarely have influence on tool choice.

Erik

PS as to the above ''how much is Eclipse and how much is GCC'' it would be interesting if someone had throughput comparisons beteen Keil/IAR and GCC both using makefiles.

frankmeyer9
frankmeyer9
Associate III
June 26, 2013
Posted on June 26, 2013 at 15:12

PS as to the above ''how much is Eclipse and how much is GCC'' it would be interesting if someone had throughput comparisons beteen Keil/IAR and GCC both using makefiles.

 

Some ''slightly off the mark'' numbers, as they don't involve Eclipse:

Those MPLabX IDE (NetBeans) takes about one minute to compile about 120 ... 150kB source code to about 30kB of hex code (flash consumption of a PIC18F MCU), using the XC8 compiler. Host is that said i7-core machine with 4GB RAM.

For comparision: the Ethernet/webserver demo project for the STM32F4_DIS-BB has >500k source code (estimate), produces about 35kB (Keil) and 45kB (Crossworks) of code (flash occupation), and takes less than 15 seconds to compile + link on the same machine.

Number are of course relating to a Clean + Build.

Actually, I would not expect much difference between Eclipse and a make-file when driving the same compiler.

The most annoying thing (to me) are those scanners and checkers that make the GUI so sluggish. And it gets really interesting when the Eclipse-integrated C code parser/scanner is in disagreement with the compiler ...

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