Compilers Fortify Critical Embedded Software

Green Hills Software introduces its Compiler 2018.1 for creating highly optimized 32-bit and 64-bit embedded C and C++ software applications for all common embedded processor architectures, including Arm, Intel and Power Architecture. As a result, users see 3x faster vector processing speeds, and scores beating the LLVM Compiler even on LLVM's own benchmark suite. Other highlights of Compiler 2018.1 include full C++14 support, Spectre mitigations and support for the highest functional safety levels. As per Green Hills, compiler 2018.1 enables designers to bring their products to market more quickly, meet safety and security requirements and extract maximum processor performance in all embedded markets including automotive, industrial control, high performance computing (HPC), digital storage and consumer products.

 

Optimized Performance

  • Compared to the LLVM Foundation's own C/C++ test-suite Benchmarks (v5.0), on which the LLVM Compiler is tuned to, Green Hills Compiler 2018.1 is 4.2% faster than LLVM on Arm and 3.4% faster on Arm64.
  • Compiler 2018.1 is the only safety-qualified compiler with auto vectorization to accelerate vector processing for SIMD (Single Instruction Multiple Data) acceleration units on Arm/Arm64 NEON, Intel SSE and Power Architecture.
  • Green Hills Compiler 2018.1 auto vectorization for C++14 improved 14% or more on Arm, Arm64 and Intel Architectures on the industry-standard Eigen benchmarks, beating the LLVM compiler on Arm architecture.
  • Auto vectorization for Arm NEON SIMD powered an impressive 3x performance increase to top the GNU compiler and another compiler based on LLVM, on real application code supplied by automotive customers focused on vector-intensive image recognition, deep learning and vision processing.

 

Certified Safety, Reliability and Security

 

Green Hills claims its C/C++ compilers have achieved the highest levels of certified safety for Automotive (ISO 26262 ASIL D), Industrial (IEC 61508 SIL 3) and Railway (EN 50128 SIL 4).

  • C compiler and C runtime libraries with safety certificate
  • C++ compiler and C++ runtime libraries with safety certificate, supporting C++03, C++11 and C++14
  • Tightly integrated with the built-in MISRA-C Adherence and DoubleCheck static analysis tools, seamlessly run as part of a single-pass compilation
  • Essential to the pre-certified INTEGRITY® real-time operating system
  • Services to help customers certify their systems with safety and security organizations
  • Compilers 2018.1 and future updates include mitigations for the Spectre side-channel security vulnerabilities (Variant 1: CVE-2017-5753 and Variant 2: CVE-2017-5715).   

Compatibility and Productivity

 

The software development phase is often the costliest portion of developing an embedded system. Compiler 2018.1 adds capabilities to decrease time-to-market and time-to-volume, such as:

  • Support for new features in C++14 as defined by the ISO/IEC 14882:2014 standard including shared mutexes/locking for multithreading applications, expanded lambda function facilities and variable templates … and many more language features
  • Easier to use templates for more flexibility
  • Improved linker optimizations to remove unused data
  • 32-bit and 64-bit compiler binary distributions help customers compile large, auto-generated code.

Availability

 

Green Hills C/C++ Optimizing Compiler 2018.1, with the MULTI IDE is available now for Arm, Intel, Power Architecture, RH850, TriCore, MIPS and ColdFire architectures. Need to know more? Then visit Green Hills Software.