Altium releases TASKING ARM Cortex-M embedded development tools for Mac

SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA: Altium Ltd announced the release of its TASKING VX-toolset for ARM Cortex-M for Apple Mac computers running OS X.

Traditionally embedded software development tools have been available exclusively for the Windows operating system and Altium has a long history in providing its TASKING cross compilers and debuggers for running on Windows, including its TASKING VX-toolset for ARM Cortex-M.

With ARM Cortex-M based microcontrollers becoming popular in broad market consumer applications, especially with wearable electronics and electronic systems that can be controlled from the iPhone, it is apparent that embedded software engineers want to use the Mac as their development platform.

To serve this development community, Altium has developed a native OS X port of release v5.1r1 of its TASKING VX-toolset for ARM Cortex-M, bringing its C compiler suite with Eclipse based IDE and debugger to Mac computers.

"Given the growing popularity of Mac OS X and the development of ARM Cortex-M based embedded applications connecting to applications on the iPhone and iPad platforms, we're excited to offer our TASKING Embedded Development Tools to Mac users," said Harm-Andre Verhoef, Product manager, TASKING. “Altium's product offering will empower embedded ARM based developments and provide Mac users with the tools to bring their embedded applications to life."

Previously, embedded-application developers that preferred Mac computers relied on virtual machines hosting the Windows operating system within OS X in order to run an embedded cross compiler. This led to an inefficient workflow and a variety of challenges, including problems connecting a debug probe reliably to the debugger running inside the virtual machine.

The native port to OS X of the TASKING compiler breaks down the barriers for developing embedded applications for Mac users, while allowing them to work efficiently in their platform of choice. Cooperation with STMicroelectronics made it possible to offer in-circuit debug capabilities with the Eclipse integrated TASKING debugger, using the USB port on the Mac to connect to the ST-LINK/V2 debug probe.

TASKING’s Viper compiler technology used in the ARM compiler ensures platform compatibility for developers on OS X and their colleagues using Windows, allowing for easy migration and collaboration. The Viper technology has an industry proven reputation of generating highly efficient and robust code for automotive applications like power train, body control, chassis control and safety critical applications, benefiting developments for broad market and industrial applications.