Toolchains

Toolchains for Embedded
Systems
– Chaitannya Mahatme
http://www.embeddednirvana.org http://wiki.embeddednirvana.org
Definition
● The usual development tools available on a GNU/Linux workstation is
a native toolchain
● This toolchain runs on your workstation and generates code for your
workstation, usually x86
● For embedded system development, it is usually impossible or not
interesting to use a native toolchain
– The target is too restricted in terms of storage and/or memory
– The target is very slow compared to your workstation
– You may not want to install all development tools on your target.
● Therefore, crosscompiling toolchains are generally used. They run on
your workstation but generate code for your target.
Definition
Source code
Compilation
Crosscompiling machine
Native toolchain
toolchain
x86
x86 binary Execution
ARM binary
machine
x86 ARM
Components
Binutils Kernel headers
C/C++ libraries GCC compiler
GDB debugger
(optional)
Binutils
● Binutils is a set of tools to generate and manipulate
binaries for a given CPU architecture
– as, the assembler
– ld, the linker
– ar, ranlib, to generate .a archives, used for libraries
– objdump, readelf, size, nm, strings, to inspect binaries.
Very useful analysis tools !
– strip, to strip useless parts of binaries in order to reduce
their size
● http://www.gnu.org/software/binutils/
● GPL license
GCC compiler
● GNU C Compiler, the famous free software
compiler
● Can compile C, C++, Ada, Fortran, Java, Objective
C, ObjectiveC++, and generate code for a large
number of CPU architectures, including ARM,
AVR, Blackfin, Atmel, Xtensa, etc.
● http://gcc.gnu.org/
●
Available under the GPL license, libraries under
the LGPL.
C library
● The C library is an essential
component of a Linux system
– Bridge between the user space and Kernel
the kernel space.
– Provides the wellknown standard C
C Library
API to ease application development
● Several C libraries are available: Applications
glibc, uClibc, eglibc, dietlibc,
newlib, etc.
glibc
http://www.gnu.org/software/libc/
● License: LGPL
● C library from the GNU project
● Designed for performance, standards compliance and
portability
● Found on all GNU / Linux host systems
● Of course, actively maintained
● Quite big for small embedded systems: approx 2.5 MB
on arm (version 2.9 libc: 1.5 MB, libm: 750 KB)
uClibc
http://www.uclibc.org/ from CodePoet Consulting
● License: LGPL
● Lightweight C library for small embedded systems
– High configurability: many features can be enabled or
disabled through a menuconfig interface
– Works only with Linux/uClinux, works on most embedded
architectures
– No stable ABI, different ABI depending on the library
configuration
– Focus on size rather than performance
– Small compile time
Getting a precompiled toolchain
● Solution that most people choose, because it is the simplest
and most convenient solution.
● Many toolchains are freely available precompiled on the
Web
– CodeSourcery, http://www.codesourcery.com, is a
reference in that area, but they only provide glibc
toolchains.
– See also http://elinux.org/Toolchains
● You should preferably use toolchain released by the chip
vendor of your target board, in order utilize all the hardware
features on the chip.
Installing a precompiled toolchain
● Follow the installation procedure proposed by
the vendor
● Usually, it is simply a matter of extracting a
tarball at the proper place
●
Then, add the path to toolchain binaries in your PATH:
export PATH=/path/to/toolchain/bin/:$PATH
Overview of ARM architectures.
● ARM 7
● ARM 9
● ARM 11
ARM7TDMI
● ARM7TDMI
(ARM7+Thumb+Debug+Multiplier+ICE)
● This generation introduced the Thumb 16
bit instruction set
Audio controller in the SEGA Dreamcast
● DLink DSL604+ Wireless ADSL Router.
● iPod ,iRiver
● Most of Nokia's mobile phone range.
ARM 9
●
ARM moved from a von Neumann
architecture (Princeton architecture) to a
Harvard architecture with separate
instruction and data bus (and caches),
significantly increasing its potential speed.
● Most important change was introduction of
MMU, so that POSIX complaint OS (Linux,
window CE, etc) could be ported.
● All smart phones
ARM 11
● SIMD instructions which can double MPEG4
and audio digital signal processing algorithm
speed
● Cache is physically addressed, solving many
cache aliasing problems and reducing context
switch overhead.
● TI OMAP2 series processors.
●
All touch based smart phones.
Steps of CrossCompilation
●
gcc: Run the crosscompiler on the host
machine to produce assembler files for the
target machine.
● as: Assemble the files produced by the
crosscompiler.
● ld: Link those files to make an executable.
You can do this either with a linker on the
target machine, or with a crosslinker on
the host machine.
Specifing target for your toolchain
●
armlinux
● Armv4l : This makes support for the ARM
v4 architecture, as used in the StrongARM,
ARM7TDMI, ARM8, ARM9.
● Armv5l : This makes support for the ARM
v5 architecture, as used in the XScale and
ARM10.
EABI for Linux
● GNU EABI is a new Application Binary
Interface (ABI) for Linux a.k.a Embedded ABI.
It's a standard for compiler, just like we have
POSIX standard for OS.
● EABI specifies standard conventions for file
formats, data types, register usage, stack frame
organization, and function parameter passing
of an embedded software program.
EABI target
Some sample toolchains.
● Armeabi : This means it's a EABI compliant
toolchain.
● armnoneeabi: Here none means it's
architecture neutral.
Other EABI options
●
armnonegnueabi: this is the name as arm
noneeabi (specific to GNU compiler).
● armunknowneabi: bare metal
● armlinuxeabi: Designed to be used to
build programs with glibc under a Linux
environment. This would what you would
use to build programs for an embeded
linux ARM device.
CPU options
●
arm7, arm7tdmi, arm720t,
● arm9', arm9e, arm920, arm920t
● arm1136js, arm1176jzs
Other configure options
●
enableinterwork This allows for
assembling Thumb and ARM code mixed
into the same binaries (for those chips that
support that)
● enablemultilib Multilib allows the use of
libraries that are compiled multiple times
for different targets/build types.
Why switch to EABI?
●
Compilers that support the EABI create
object code that is compatible with code
generated by other such compilers, thus
you can link libraries generated with with
object code generated with a different
compiler.
●
Allows use of optimized hardfloat
functions with the system's softfloat
libraries
● Uses a more efficient syscall convention,
hence faster performance.
● Since it's a newly adopted standard, will be
more compatible with future tools.
Compilation process
● Binutils
● glibc
● gcc
● gdb
That's all Folks … Thank you

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Toolchains for Embedded

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