IAR Embedded Workbench for Renesas RL78

• The Renesas RL78/G24 Flexible Application Accelerator (FAA) co-processor is supported
  

  • The Renesas FAA assembler is incorporated in the IAR Embedded Workbench
  • FAA assembler-generated output is linked with the IAR linker
  • The IAR C-SPY debugger supports multicore debugging for the FAA core

• Improved compliance with the CC-RL ABI specification
  

  Additional standard library functions and runtime routines have been implemented.

• Debugging support for flash self-programming
  

  Debugging support while self-programming is in progress has been added for G2x and F2x devices.

• Program corrections
  

  Errors have been corrected in the compiler, linker, and in IAR C-STAT.

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• Library support for the C++17 language standard
  The toolset includes a new C++ library that supports C++17 library features. 
• Additional GNU C language extensions
  The IAR C/C++ Compiler supports a number of new GCC-style operators, attributes and expressions in extended language mode. 
• Editor and IDE enhancements
  • Editor themes - a new way to set up the colors and fonts in the text editor
  • Syntax feedback - instant syntax suggestions while typing
  • Improved parameter hints
  • Window color themes - dark mode
  • Gray out inactive code support
• Iarbuild enhancements
  The iarbuild command line build utility now supports:
• Generating a Ninja build file based on the IAR Embedded Workbench project format
• Generating a JSON description of the Embedded Workbench project
• More C-STAT reporting and configuration methods
• 64-bit Windows application
  IAR Embedded Workbench now runs as a 64-bit Windows application.
• Visual Studio Code support
  The IAR Build and IAR C-SPY Debug extensions available on Microsoft Marketplace enable you to work in Visual Studio Code (with IAR Embedded Workbench installed) to:
• Build IAR Embedded Workbench projects
• Run the C-STAT static analysis tool
• Debug applications using the same range of hardware/debug probes as in IAR Embedded Workbench. (An initial debug session with IAR Embedded Workbench is required to fill in the settings in the Hardware setup dialog box, prior to debugging in Visual Studio Code)
• C-STAT enhancements
• MISRA C:2012 Amendment 1
  The static analysis tool C-STAT has extended its coverage of the MISRA C:2012 Coding Standard and now fully supports MISRA C:2012 Amendment 1. This amendment adds 14 additional rules to MISRA C:2012 with a focus on security concerns highlighted by the ISO C Secure Guidelines. Several of these address specific issues pertaining to the use of untrustworthy data, a well-known security vulnerability.
• MISRA C:2012 Amendment 2
  

  The static analysis tool C-STAT has extended its coverage of the MISRA C:2012 Coding Standard and now fully supports MISRA C:2012 Amendment 2. This Amendment adds two additional rules to MISRA C:2012 and introduces support for ISO/IEC 9899:2011, commonly referred to as "C11".

• Improved performance
  Depending on the project, the analysis can be up to 40% faster and memory consumption reduced by up to 20%, compared to the previous version of C-STAT.
• Updated device support
  The device support files have been updated to the most recent version from Renesas.
• Updated user documentation
  The C/C++ Development Guide, C-SPY Debugging Guide, and IDE Project Management and Building Guide have been updated to reflect the product changes.

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• RL78/G23 microcontroller group support
  The RL78/G23 group of microcontrollers is now supported.
• IAR Build Tools for Linux
  A new product, IAR Build Tools for Renesas RL78, is available. It requires a separate product license and is distributed as a Debian package for Ubuntu containing the IAR C/C++ Compiler, IAR Assembler, Linker and library tools, C-STAT, IARBuild, and runtime libraries. Get product info
• C-STAT enhancements
  • Extended coverage of CERT C
    The static analysis tool C-STAT has extended its coverage of the SEI CERT C Coding Standard. The SEI CERT C Coding Standard's goal is to provide rules for developing safe, reliable, and secure systems in the C programming language, with support for C11 constructs. C-STAT covers all rules in the different CERT C sections listed on the CERT C wiki as of January 2020, with the exception of the API, CON, POS, and WIN sections, which are not applicable to IAR Systems products, yielding a total of 90 covered rules.
  • Link analysis trace information
    The link analysis messages now display trace information when relevant. For checks looking for conflicting symbol names, all conflicting declarations are now listed in the trace information instead of each pair of conflicts being described in a separate message. This might lead to fewer reported messages for the same number of found issues.
• Renesas Smart Configurator included
  The Renesas RL78 Smart Configurator V1.0.1 has been included.

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C18 support
The default Standard C is now C18 (ISO/IEC 9899:2018).

C++17 support
The compiler now supports almost all C++17 features. The C++ library supports C++14 with no C++17 additions.

Improved Source Browser
The following improvements have been made to the Source Browser:

• The source browser data is generated faster as it is now running as a separate thread.
• New Source Browser Log window.
• Status indicator in the status bar.
• Enhanced feedback in case source browsing data cannot be generated.

EZ-CUBE2 On-Chip Debug Emulator support
The EZ-CUBE2 On-Chip Debug Emulator, primarily targeted for the Chinese market, is now supported.

E2 emulator power debugging in C-SPY
The E2 emulator allows you to measure the dynamically changing current drawn by the user system. This is visualized as a graph in the C-SPY Timeline window as well as a list of time-current value pairs in the Power Log window. It is also possible to stop execution when the current goes above or below a certain user-defined threshold value.

Documentation Comments support in the editor
The editor can distinguish comments that start with /**, /*!, /// or //! as Documentation Comments. Inside a Documentation Comment, the editor can recognize keywords that begin with \ or @. If the keyword is recognized as a doxygen keyword, the Documentation Comment will appear in tooltips and parameter hints for variables and functions. See IAR Embedded Workbench IDE Project Management and Building Guide for more information.

Updated user documentation
The IDE Project Management and Building Guide, C-SPY Debugging Guide and C/C++ Development Guide have been updated to reflect the product changes.

Read complete release notes

• IAR Embedded Workbench IDE Project Management and Building Guide
• IAR C/C++ Development Guide
• IAR Assembler Reference Guide
• IAR Linker and Library Tools Reference Guide
• C-SPY Debugging Guide
• IAR Embedded Workbench MISRA C:2004 Reference Guide
• IAR Embedded Workbench MISRA C:1998 Reference Guide
• Migration Guide from the CS+ CA78K0R toolchain for RL78 to IAR Embedded Workbench
• Migration Guide from Renesas toolchain for M16C/R8C to IAR Embedded Workbench

Hardware debugging support

• Renesas E2 Emulator
• Renesas E1 Emulator
• Renesas E2 Emulator Lite
• Renesas EZ-Cube
• Renesas IECUBE
• Renesas E20
• Renesas TK

RTOS support

• Micrium μC/OS-II
• OSEK Run Time Interface (ORTI)
• embOS
• Express Logic
• FreeRTOS
• CMX

Each RTOS plugin installs a number of new windows in C-SPY, most importantly the task or thread list windows where task-specific breakpoints can be specified and task-specific steps executed. Different inspector windows display the contents of the internal data structures of the RTOS such as timers, queues, semaphores, resources and mailboxes.

The IAR C/C++ compilers offer different dialects of the C and C++ programming languages, as well as different extensions specific for embedded programming (please note that not all language standards are supported for all target implementations). The compiler can be instructed to disable extensions for strict conformance to the standards. 

A wide range of industry-standard debug and image formats compatible with most popular debuggers and emulators are supported. This includes ELF/DWARF where applicable.

ISO/ANSI C/C++ Compliance

The IAR C/C++ compilers adhere to a freestanding implementation of the following C programming language standards:

• INCITS/ISO/IEC 9899:2018, known as C18 (Latest version only).
• The compiler supports all C++17 features. The C++ library supports C++14 with no C++17 additions.  (Latest version only).
• ISO/IEC 14882:2015, known as C++14
• INCITS/ISO/IEC 9899:2012, known as C11
• ANSI X3.159-1989, known as C89

The ISO/ANSI C/C++ Compliance level varies between the different compilers. For complete information, please refer to the IAR C/C++ Compiler user documentation in your chosen product.

IEEE 754 standard

IAR Embedded Workbench supports the IEEE 754 standard for floating-point arithmetic.

MISRA C

MISRA C is a software development standard for the C programming language developed by MISRA, The Motor Industry Software Reliability Association. Its aims are to facilitate code safety, portability and reliability in the context of embedded systems, specifically those systems programmed in ISO C.

The first edition of the MISRA C standard, "Guidelines for the use of the C language in vehicle based software", was produced in 1998. In 2004, a second edition was produced with many substantial changes to the guidelines, including a complete renumbering of the rules. Additionally MISRA C:2012 with extended support and MISRA C++:2008 for identifying unsafe code constructs in the C++ standard have also been added to the standards.

IAR Embedded Workbench features an add-on product C-STAT so you can check compliance with rules as defined by MISRA C:2004, MISRA C++:2008 and MISRA C:2012.

Test validation

We use the following commercial test suites to test conformance of our tools to the standards:

• Plum Hall Validation test suite for ISO/IEC C conformance
• Perennial EC++ Validation Suite for C++ conformance
• Dinkum C++ Proofer to test how our libraries conform to the C and C++ standard as well as test our STL implementation against the C++ standard.

In addition to the commercial suites, we use several in-house test suites for testing new features, regression testing, corrected errors, etc.