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ARM development toolset for handset builders

Modelling environment hosts early software builds for mobile/media devices

ARM has assembled a tools bundle in its RealView series, that is tailored for the needs of engineers creating mobile applications and services. RealView Development Suite 3.1 Professional tools comprise the RealView Development Suite; the RealView Profiler tool; the ultra-fast Real-Time System Models; and the NEON vectorising compiler. You can use them for applications that will employ the Symbian OS. ARM has integrated the tool suite with its ESL tools to provide a unified tool chain from architectural exploration, through to the deployment of hardware and virtual platforms. Fast real time system models support early software design before silicon is available.
ARM has included a Real-Time System Model of the Cortex-A8 processor that incorporates the NEON advanced SIMD unit. The performance of this ultra-fast model is equivalent to silicon running at 200MHz or more, on a typical host PC, which makes it the ideal tool for developing mobile applications ahead of silicon availability. Together with the cycle timings delivered by the RealView Profiler – which carries out non-intrusive code analysis and provides code coverage data – ssoftware developers can obtain a thorough understanding of performance bottlenecks to optimise the applications in advance of hardware. The NEON vectorising compiler enables software developers to take advantage of the NEON advanced SIMD media processing extensions using standard ISO C and standard ISO C++ code to improve, ARM says, performance of individual kernels by up to 400% and complete media applications by more than 200%. Cores supported include ARM926EJ-STM, ARM1136JF-STM, and ARM1176JZF-STM. The tool suite is available now.