ARM Announces RealView Profiler for Embedded Software Analysis

Unique tool that enables fast and non-intrusive software analysis with no time limit on the length of the analysis run

CAMBRIDGE, UK – Oct. 2, 2007 – ARM today announced at the ARM® Developers’ Conference, Santa Clara, Calif., the launch of the RealView® Profiler, a unique tool specifically designed to enable non-intrusive analysis of software performance and code coverage of real system workloads running over minutes, hours or days. Using the tool, developers can typically improve the performance of their application by more than 20 percent, while at the same time enabling reduction of the ROM size requirements by a similar amount. The RealView Profiler also includes comprehensive analysis of both statement and branch code coverage, enabling software testing to achieve and demonstrate 100 percent code coverage to ensure the highest levels of software validation.

The RealView Profiler is designed to complement ARM’s industry-leading Compilation technology and will drive ARM processor-based devices to new performance levels. Based on the comprehensive ARM debug and trace infrastructure, the RealView Profiler delivers unrivalled insight into the performance of embedded device software. The RealView Profiler supports performance analysis from the early stages right until the end of the design cycle and, therefore, greatly reduces software development project risks. To enable this, the ARM RealView Profiler supports both hardware profiling, via the new RealView Trace 2 capture unit, and virtual platform profiling, via the ultra-fast RealView Real-Time System Models.

“The consumer electronics market requires increasingly complex applications delivering rich media content, making embedded software performance and quality an absolute imperative,” said John Cornish, vice president, Marketing, System Design Division, ARM. “The RealView Profiler supports non-intrusive analysis of software performance and code coverage of real system workloads, and provides critical insights and hot spot information. This enables developers to quickly optimize their code for both performance and code coverage and makes it the ideal product to test and measure production level embedded software”.

“Our customers want to make the most of our ARM Powered® Wireless CPU® and expect optimal real-time responsiveness and high computing performance,” said Stéphane Baixas, director of Software department at WAVECOM SA. “The RealView Profiler will help us to identify bottlenecks in our code and improve the performance of our Open AT® OS. In addition, thanks to the code coverage feature, we will be able to broaden our test capabilities to ensure the quality and reliability of our solutions.”

The RealView Profiler is a plug-in to the industry-leading Eclipse™ Integrated Development Environment and in this environment provides a graphical user interface that is designed for ease of use with a familiar look and feel. This significantly increases productivity in the normally challenging optimization phase.

Technical information
The RealView Profiler can be used alongside RealView Development Suite  and the GNU tools to provide performance and code-path coverage information. The RealView Profiler provides its information for both the executed machine instructions and the original source code. This is essential for the success of the widely-used practice of incorporating third-party software into the end product; without this a thorough impact analysis is exceedingly difficult.

The RealView Profiler offers unrivalled insight into the performance and behaviour of ARM processor-based devices, providing detailed information on CPU interlocks, unexpected instruction delays, code efficiency and low-level instructions views mapped back to software developer’s source code annotated with performance information. This enables software developers to take full advantage of ARM processor-based devices in the shortest possible time.

The RealView Profiler provides hardware profiling in combination with the new RealView Trace 2 unit using a unique streaming profiling technique. This enables continuous profiling for long periods of time at frequencies up to 250 MHz. This first release of the RealView Profiler will support the ARM926EJ-S™, ARM1136JF-S™, ARM1176JZF-S™ and Cortex™-R4 processors, with more to be added in the next months. The RealView Trace 2 unit also supports classic 32-bit data and instruction trace at up to 400 MHz to enable advanced trace and debug using the ARM RealView Development Suite.

The RealView Profiler also provides profiling without the need for actual hardware by including four RealView Real-Time System Models of the ARM926EJ-S, ARM1136JF-S, ARM1176JZF-S and Cortex-A8 processors. These models can execute at more than 200 MHz running on a standard PC platform and can be deployed across development teams at low cost.

More information on the RealView Profiler is available at http://www.arm.com/RealView/Profile

About ARM
ARM designs the technology that lies at the heart of advanced digital products, from wireless, networking and consumer entertainment solutions to imaging, automotive, security and storage devices. ARM’s comprehensive product offering includes 16/32-bit RISC microprocessors, data engines, graphics processors, digital libraries, embedded memories, peripherals, software and development tools, as well as analog functions and high-speed connectivity products. Combined with the company’s broad Partner community, they provide a total system solution that offers a fast, reliable path to market for leading electronics companies. More information on ARM is available at http://www.arm.com.