AbsInt Announces aiPop Code Compaction Suite for HC08

Press release

Saarbruecken, Germany — 19 February 2004. AbsInt today announced the availability of aiPop for HC08, a tool that automatically reduces the size real-time applications for HC08 microprocessors — without changing the applications' functionality.

AbsInt Angewandte Informatik GmbH, a worldwide leader in static program analysis and timing validation, today announced that aiPop, its code compaction suite, is now also available for HC08 microprocessors.

The size of compiled C code is becoming increasingly critical in embedded systems, where the economic incentives to reduce ROM sizes are very compelling:

• Product managers have an almost insatiable demand for cost-effective solutions in the mass production of consumer goods such as cellular phones, electric motor controls, and automotive engineering applications.
• Customers want the functionality of existing designs to be enhanced via additional code sequences. Unfortunately, they no longer fit available memory at a certain point.

The aiPop code compaction suite provides the solution to these problems: it automatically reduces the size of compiled C code based on abstract interpretation and advanced pattern matching techniques. Reducing code size means reducing system costs, saving additional engineering effort and extending application lifetime while speeding up time to market.

aiPop for HC08 features:

• Automatic code size reduction based on functional abstraction (reverse inlining) for basic blocks and tail merging for procedures.
• High performance even for global optimizations thanks to a sophisticated pattern database.
• Seamless integration into existing and well-established tool-chains.
• All changes in the optimized assembly files are marked, enabling incremental program verification which is especially important for safety-critical applications.

Tests of aiPop for HC08 on complete reference customer applications showed overall code size reductions of more than 7%. Compacting code by 7% allows 7.5% more functionality to be packed into a flash memory of the same size.

With aiPop, tedious and error-prone hand-crafted optimization is a thing of the past. aiPop provides automatic tool support to optimize your applications. Thus, saving considerable effort and expense.

Requirements

aiPop for HC08 optimizes assembly files as produced by the COSMIC C compiler for Motorola HC08 microcontrollers. Optimization of hand-written code is supported to some extent provided that it is similar to compiler-generated code. aiPop for HC08 is available for x86/Windows (NT/2000/XP), x86/Linux, and Sparc/Solaris.

An evaluation version of the aiPop for HC08 code compaction suite is available on request.

About AbsInt

AbsInt Angewandte Informatik GmbH provides sophisticated software products and advanced services in the areas of compiler optimization, static program analysis, and worst-case execution time prediction. Founded in 1998, AbsInt is a privately-held company located in Saarbruecken, Germany.

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