Santa Barbara, CA. May 15, 2000 -- Green Hills Software today announced that its optimizing C compilers have prevailed again in the second running of the EEMBC (EDN Embedded Microprocessor Benchmark Consortium) benchmarks. The win is a repeat performance of last year's EEMBC benchmarks, in which Green Hills' compilers took top honors when EEMBC published preliminary results of its benchmarks at the 1999 Embedded Processor Forum.
Green Hills' compilers were used in 12 of the 23 benchmark results reported by EEMBC for 32- and 64-bit processors on April 11. No other compiler figured in more than five of the 23 posted scores. EEMBC members, including NEC and Toshiba, selected Green Hills compilers over other compilers supporting their processors in order to achieve greater speed and reduced code size on the EEMBC benchmarks. Green Hills' C/C++ compilers performed particularly well with NEC's V832™ and VR5000™ processors, with NEC Electronics using the Green Hills compilers to post results for automotive, consumer, networking, office automation, and telecom applications. Toshiba also used Green Hills' C/C++ compiler to post results for its TMP3927F processor in the EEMBC office automation and networking benchmarks.
"We're two for two on the EEMBC benchmarks," said John Carbone, vice president of marketing at Green Hills Software. "The EEMBC benchmarks test both processor performance and compiler performance. To achieve the best possible results, processor vendors typically run the benchmarks with several different compilers. They then report the best results produced by any compiler. As such, the EEMBC benchmarks become every bit a test of compiler performance as they do of processor performance."
"Green Hills Software has been very helpful in supporting the EEMBC benchmark process," said Markus Levy, president of EEMBC. "The consortium is looking forward to Green Hills' continued involvement in helping the EEMBC development of new and improved versions of the EEMBC benchmarks for the embedded industry."
"Green Hills Software's compiler is optimized to take advantage of Toshiba's TX SystemRISC™ architecture," said Siamak Siyami, applications engineering manager at Toshiba America Electronic Components, Inc. "Our customers have been using GHS compilers for years and they have generated excellent results for our MIPS®-based processors. We tested other compilers, but none of them produced better results than GHS."
"We selected the GHS compiler," added Karl Auker, assistant general manager of VR Series Microprocessors, NEC Electronics Inc., "because it enabled our VR5000 MIPS processor to obtain maximum performance in the consumer and automotive/industrial EEMBC applications. As a result of improved performance prompted by the EEMBC application code, Green Hills actually improved NEC's VR5000 performance by an average of 27% in the automotive/industrial category over the next-best compiler."
EEMBC was founded in 1997 to develop a set of real-world benchmarks for the embedded industry that system designers could use to evaluate microprocessors and vendors could use to help improve the performance and functionality of their microprocessors. Unlike established benchmarks like the Dhrystones, which attempt to evaluate fundamental processor attributes through a handful of relatively short core routines, the EEMBC benchmarks provide a better gauge of real-world performance by utilizing real applications (wherever possible) that have been developed for a variety of industries, including consumer electronics, automotive, and telecom.
Processor vendors who want to evaluate the performance of their CPUs, uCs, and DSPs license source code for the benchmarks from the EEMBC. They then select a compiler to convert the EEMBC source code into machine code for their particular processor. The EEMBC Certification Laboratories (ECL) validates the results by running the benchmarks on that processor using the same compiler and system configuration. The EEMBC benchmarks may also be licensed by RTOS and compiler vendors who want to use them to improve their software tools, and by customers of EEMBC members who want to use the benchmarks to select microprocessors, microcontrollers, and DSPs.
Green Hills Software offers C/C++ compilers and a complete Integrated Development Environment (MULTI® 2000) for most EEMBC member company processors, the broadest processor coverage available in the industry. Vendors who want to run the EEMBC benchmarks on their processor with an off-the-shelf Green Hills compiler (not optimized for EEMBC) can do so free of charge. Green Hills will also work with vendors to produce EEMBC-optimized versions of its compilers for particular processors. Given EEMBC benchmarks' relevance to real-world applications, these EEMBC optimizations actually benefit real-world applications, not just the benchmarks themselves.
Green Hills Software was the first third-party compiler suppliers to license the EEMBC benchmarks, and is in the process of enhancing its compilers to run the benchmarks more efficiently. "Because the EEMBC benchmarks are based on real-world code," remarked Carbone, "we fully expect that the compiler enhancements we make to improve EEMBC performance will also carry through to a broad range of embedded applications not related to EEMBC."
Green Hill Software's family of C, C++, EC++, Ada95, Pascal and FORTRAN compilers, together with the MULTI Integrated Development Environment, automate all aspects of embedded software development. Featuring a window-oriented, RTOS-aware source-level debugger, MULTI also provides a graphical program builder, run-time error checker, execution profiler, and source/version control. MULTI also provides instruction set simulators for most major microprocessors that enable programmers to develop code without having access to target hardware.
More on Green Hills Software
Incorporated in 1982, Green Hills Software, Inc., is a leading supplier of software development tools for 32- and 64-bit embedded systems. Green Hills Software offers a family of optimizing C, C++, Embedded C++, Ada 95, FORTRAN and Pascal compilers. The company's unique MULTI software development environment automates the compile-edit-build-debug cycle by integrating advanced facilities such as an RTOS-aware source-level debugger, performance profiler, program builder and version control system.
Green Hills Software's tools support all major 32-bit and 64-bit advanced microprocessor families and target environments, including instruction set simulators, ROM Monitors, commercial and home grown real-time operating systems (RTOS) and in-circuit emulators (ICE).
Green Hills Software is headquartered in Santa Barbara, CA., and has US offices in California, Colorado, Illinois, Massachusetts, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Texas, and Florida. International headquarters are located in the United Kingdom, with offices in France, Germany, and the Netherlands. For sales information on Green Hills Software products, please call 1-805-965-6044 or email inquiries to sales@ghs.com.
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