Segger ports dev tool to Apple M1
German developer Segger has optimised its ARM and RISC-V development tool for Apple’s M1 chip, the first ARM-based system-on-chip (SoC) designed specifically for the Mac.
Embedded Studio is Seggers’s cross-platform Integrated Development Environment (IDE) for ARM and RISC-V SOCs. Version 5.40 is the first dev tool for M1, says the company.
While the ARM-based M1 can execute applications for Intel x86-based CPUs using Apple’s Rosetta 2 translator, applications built specifically for the M1 core execute much faster and use less power. Translation is a one-time event, usually done on installation or at the first start-up of an application. After that the application can be natively executed, just like on any other machine, but translation takes some time and translated code is not as good or as efficient as original code.
For optimal results pple encourages developers to build applications specifically for the M1. Natively compiled source code produces fewer instructions to execute or more efficient instruction sequences. Such natively optimized code requires less time to execute and can result in less power usage.
There are now two macOS packages available for download – one for the Intel x86-64 and one for the Apple M1, with the build optimised for the ARM core. For the natively compiled code the M1 is almost twice as fast as both the Intel Core i7 and the M1 running translated code.
“The Embedded Studio build for the Apple M1 is truly cutting-edge,” said Ivo Geilenbrügge, Managing Director of Segger. “This is the first commercial embedded system IDE optimized for the M1 and the performance results of our comparison tests show it was worth the work.”
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