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 at the CERT C wiki as of January 2020, with the exception of the API, CON, POS and WIN sections which are not applicable to our 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.

Support for new devices

• Epson S1C31D01, S1C31D50
• Hilscher netX90
• Microchip SAM9X60
• Nordic nRF5340_xxAA
• NXP LPC5512, LPC5514, LPC5516, LPC55S14, LPC55S16, K32L2A31xxxxA, K32L2A41xxxxA, MIMXRT633S, MIMXRT685S, QN9030, QN9090
• Renesas R7FA2A1AB, R7FA4M1AB, R7FA6M1AD, R7FA6M2AD, R7FA6M2AF, R7FA6M3AF, R7FA6M3AH, R7S910020, R7S910021, R7S910022, R7S910023

Highlights

• Arm STAR processor core
  The Arm China STAR is the first processor in the STAR series processor family. It is a microcontroller class processor based on the Armv8-M mainline architecture with Arm TrustZone technology.

• Embedded Trace Router (ETR)

  The debugger can now handle trace data acquired using ETR with I-jet for devices that support that mechanism. ETR is similar to ETB but allows the user to use any RAM in the device as trace buffer memory.

• Support for new devices
  
  Cypress
  CYT2B7, CYT2B9, CYT3BB, CYT4BB, CYT4BF
  
  NordicSemiconductor
  nRF52811-xxAA
  
  NXP
  LPC5526, LPC5528
  K32L2B11xxxxA, K32L2B21xxxxA, K32L2B31xxxxA
  MKW34A512xxx4
  
  Renesas
  R-IN32M4-CL3
  
  ST
  STM32L4P5AE, STM32L4P5AG, STM32L4P5CE, STM32L4P5CG, STM32L4P5QE, STM32L4P5QG, STM32L4P5RE, STM32L4P5RG, STM32L4P5VE, STM32L4P5VG, STM32L4P5ZE, STM32L4P5ZG, §BR STM32L4Q5AG, STM32L4Q5CG, STM32L4Q5QG, STM32L4Q5RG, STM32L4Q5VG, STM32L4Q5ZG
  STM32L552CC, STM32L552QC, STM32L552RC, STM32L552VC
  STM32WB35CC, STM32WB35CE
  STM32WB50CG
  
  Texas Instruments
  CC2652P1F

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.

• Support for the base instruction set RV32E
  RV32E is a base instruction set that targets smaller embedded devices. The register set is reduced to half of what is available in RV32I.
• Support for the standard extension for Atomic operations (A)
  The standard extension A adds instructions that support atomic read, modify, and write actions to support synchronization between different HW processes that access the same memory.
• Support for interrupt vectors
  Interrupt vectors and the #pragma vector directive are now supported for a number of devices. New tutorial projects on how to work with interrupts are also included.
• Stack protection
  The IAR C/C++ Compiler for RISC-V now supports stack protection. A canary value will be placed between the stack variables and the return address so that the system can detect corruption of a function return address before the function returns to that address. The compiler will use heuristic to determine whether a function needs stack protection or not. If any defined local variable has the array type or a structure type that contains a member of array type, the function will need stack protection. See the IAR C/C++ Development Guide for more information.
• Optimized floating-point libraries for devices without an FPU
  New floating-point libraries hand written in assembler language to increase performance. 
• Interrupt and exception catching
  The debugger can now catch and act on exceptions and interrupts. These can be configured in the Project options dialog box for the C-SPY driver.
• Data breakpoints
  It is now possible set a breakpoint on a data address.
• Asynchronous multicore debugging
  The debugger can now handle several asynchronous cores.
• C-SPY SDK
  The C-SPY SDK is now available upon request. The SDK makes it possible to develop IAR Embedded Workbench plugins and C-SPY drivers.
• Device support
  This release adds support for the following cores:
  Andes D25F
  CloudBear BM-310

• RX72M, RX13T and RX23W supported
  The RX13T and RX23W groups of microcontrollers as well as the RX72M group, including the new double-precision floating-point processing instructions, are now supported.
• Renesas Smart Configurator fully supported
  With Renesas Smart Configurator V2.3.0 (included), the FIT (Firmware Integration Technology) modules are now compatible with IAR Embedded Workbench. This means that the tool supports the following three functions related to embedding Renesas drivers in your systems: importing middleware, generating driver code, and generating code for making pin settings. The generated modules are incorporated via the IAR Project Connection mechanism.
• EZ-CUBE2 On-Chip Debug Emulator support
  The EZ-CUBE2 On-Chip Debug Emulator, primarily targeted for the Chinese market, is now supported.

Performance optimizations

This release includes a number of optimizations for execution speed.

The following features are added in this release:

• .insn directive - This feature adds the possibility to generate instructions on all RISC-V instruction formats and can be used to generate custom instructions not directly supported by the assembler.
• Initial support for debug access through DAP - It is now possible to access RISC-V debug registers through an Arm Debug Access Port
• cJTAG - This release adds basic support for cJTAG debug connections

Support for the following devices are added in this release

• Andes N22
• MicroSemi Mi-V RV32 RISC-V softcores
• Syntacore SCR1

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.

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.

Newer version of C-STAT
The static analysis tool C-STAT has been updated with 20 additional rules, a number of bugfixes and better reporting function.

Support new debugger
Support for STLINK-V3 has been added.

RX66T and RX72T support
The RX66T and RX72T families based on Renesas third-generation 32-bit RX CPU core (RXv3) are now supported. This includes support for the following new device features:

• Arithmetic unit for trigonometric functions (TFU) that handles the calculation of sines, cosines, arctangents, and sqrt(x2 + y2) directly in hardware.
• Register-saving banks and instructions for fast saving and restoring of CPU registers in interrupt handlers.

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.

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.

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 IAR Embedded Workbench IDE Project Management and Building Guide, IAR C/C++ Development Guide and C-SPY Debugging Guide have been updated to reflect the product changes.

C18 support

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

C++17 support

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

Streaming trace for improved code coverage and profiling features

The code coverage and profiling windows in C-SPY can now be feed with streaming trace data when using the IAR I-jet Trace probes. This means that both code coverage and profiling data can be collected during infinite test runs. See IAR Embedded Workbench C-SPY Debugging Guide for more information.

Extended multicore support

The multicore support has been extended to support any number of asymmetrical cores. For example, it is now possible to debug and control a device with one A9, one M7, and two M4 cores, all synchronized by the Arm Coresight CTI mechanism under debugger control.

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.

Documentation Comments

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.

CMSIS-Pack .gpdsc

The CMSIS-Pack Manager now supports Generator Package Description Files (.gpdsc).

Performance Monitoring window

The Performance Monitoring window is a viewer for counting events or CPU clock cycles through the Performance Monitoring Unit (PMU) available on Cortex A and Cortex R processors. This feature is only available when using an IAR I-jet probe. Live update is available on all recent Cortex-A cores. See IAR Embedded Workbench C-SPY Debugging Guide for more information.

Indicator for sleep mode

A new window in the C-SPY debugger shows if the processor is sleeping or not. See IAR Embedded Workbench C-SPY Debugging Guide for more information.

C-SPY plugin for the UNISON RTOS

The REMEDY RTOS Viewer from RoweBots is now included as a C-SPY plugin. It provides updated information on operating system objects and system state information for the UNISON RTOS.

Support for new devices

This version adds support for new devices from Analog Devices, STMicroelectronics and Toshiba.

Translator platform improvements

General improvements and fixes.

Support for new devices

Support for ATmega808, ATmega809, ATmega1608, ATmega1609, and AT90SCR400 has been added.

Support for the C11 language standard

The compiler and libraries add support for the latest C language standard ISO/IEC 9899:2011.
Note: the new C library binary object interface is incompatible with earlier versions of the product.

Support for the C++14 language standard

The compiler and libraries now support the latest C++ standard ISO/IEC 14882:2014. 
Note: the new C++ library binary object interface is incompatible with earlier versions of the product.

Unicode support

The Unicode standard for consistent encoding, representation, and handling of text is now supported. This means that you can use Unicode characters (alphabetic, numeric, symbols, emoji, etc) in the source code.

IDE performance improvements

General improvements of the IDE startup time and overall performance.

Stack protection

The IAR C/C++ compiler for RL78 now supports stack protection. A canary value will be placed between the stack variables and the return address so that the system can detect corruption of a function return address before the function returns to that address. The compiler will use heuristic to determine whether a function needs stack protection or not. If any defined local variable has the array type or a structure type that contains a member of array type, the function will need stack protection.

C-STAT MISRA C

The MISRA C 2004 package in C-STAT has been updated with about 20 new checks, some of which are enabled by default.

Updated device support

SFR header files, linker configuration files, and device description files have been added for the latest Renesas devices.

Updated IDE look and feel

The IDE has new artwork, enhancements to window management and docking, customizable toolbars, revised Information Center, and new tutorials.

Enhanced Registers and Symbols windows in C-SPY

The C-SPY Symbols and Registers windows have been re-designed with new features. The Symbols window now has a filtering function and a new column displaying to which program module a certain symbol belongs. Some of the new features in the Registers window are drag-and-drop support from source code windows, detailed register tool-tip information, and improved handling of user-defined registers groups.

Improved C-STAT Static analysis

• New checks have been added including about 20 new checks in the MISRA C 2004 package.
• Improved analysis engine which increases the analysis precision.
• The time-consuming false-positive analysis is now disabled by default but can be enabled by an option in the IAR Embedded Workbench IDE or on the command line.
• A new option in the IAR Embedded Workbench IDE makes it possible to limit the number of messages generated per check and per file.
• C-STAT message suppression can now be controlled by directives placed in comments in the source files.
• A new option --deterministic has been added to ensure a deterministic amount of messages when running icstat with multiple threads, so that the amount of messages stays approximately the same from one analysis run to another. This option puts a limit on the option --parallel.

Updated user documentation

The IDE Project Management and Building Guide has been updated to reflect the product changes.

New device support

• Silicon Labs: EFM8UB31F40G, EFM8UB30F40G
• Nuvoton: ML51 - ML51BB9AE, ML51DB9AE, ML51FB9AE, ML51OB9AE, ML51XB9AE, ML51EB9AE, ML51UB9AE, ML51PB9AE, ML51TB9AE, ML51EC0AE, ML51UC0AE, ML51PC0AE, ML51TC0AE, ML51LC0AE, ML51PD1AE, ML51MD1AE, ML51LD1AE, ML51SD1AE, MS51 - MS51FB9AE, MS51XB9AE, MS51XB9BE, MS51OB9AE, N76E013
• Texas Instruments: MSC1213Y2, MSC1213Y3, MSC1213Y4, MSC1213Y5, MSC1214Y2, MSC1214Y3, MSC1214Y4, MSC1214Y5

Improvement in C-STAT

Improved full report generation to reduce the risk of slowing down the IAR Embedded Workbench and/or external web-browser.

Parallel build

IAR Embedded Workbench can now build projects using multiple parallel processes. This can improve build performance significantly on multi-core or multiple processor computers. 

C-SPY debugger improvements

• There is now a search box in the C-SPY Register window for finding a specific register.
• It is now possible to sort the entries in the C-SPY Statics window by clicking on the respective column header.
• If a selection is made in the C-SPY Memory window, then the Find and Replace context menu commands now operate just on this selection.
• The new C-SPY macro __MessageBoxYesNo displays a Yes/Cancel dialog box and returns the user input. Typically, this can be useful for creating macros that require user interaction.

Building all configurations with iarbuild

By specifying a wildcard character (*) as the configuration name, it is now possible to clean/build/make all configurations defined in the project file by calling iarbuild.exe only once.

Control of optimized DLIB library functions

Some of the DLIB libraries delivered with the product now contain optimized variants, such as a small integer division routine for Cortex-M0, or a fast strcpy implementation for cores that support the Thumb-2 ISA. The compiler and linker will automatically select the variant that matches the optimization goal. It is possible to override this selection by using the option --use_optimized_variants. See user guide corrections for more information.

CMSIS-DAP v2

The debugger now supports the latest CMSIS-DAP standard with WinUSB transfer mode resulting in faster debug experiences when using CMSIS-DAP v2 compliant boards.

Support for new devices

Support for new devices from Ambiq, Cypress, Microchip, NXP, Qorvo.

Updated IDE look and feel

The IDE has new artwork, enhancements to window management and docking, customizable toolbars, revised Information Center, and new tutorials.

Support for the C11 language standard

The compiler and libraries add support for the latest C language standard ISO/IEC 9899:2011.

Support for the C++14 language standard

The compiler and libraries now support the latest C++ standard ISO/IEC 14882:2014.

Unicode support

The Unicode standard for consistent encoding, representation, and handling of text is now supported. This means that you can use Unicode characters (alphabetic, numeric, symbols, emoji, etc) in the source code.

Stack usage analysis

With stack usage analysis enabled, a stack usage section will be added to the linker map file with listings of the maximum stack depth for each call graph root. The analysis process can be customized to take into account such constructs as calls via function pointers and recursion. The output can optionally be generated in XML format for post-processing activities.

Stack protection

The IAR C/C++ compiler for RH850 now supports stack protection. A canary value will be placed between the stack variables and the return address so that the system can detect corruption of a function return address before the function returns to that address. The compiler will use heuristic to determine whether a function needs stack protection or not. If any defined local variable has the array type or a structure type that contains a member of array type, the function will need stack protection.

Renesas Smart Configurator included

Renesas Smart Configurator is a standalone tool for automatically generating control programs (device driver programs) for peripheral modules in accordance with settings. It fully supports code generation for IAR Embedded Workbench for RH850 and the generated modules are incorporated via the IAR Project Connection mechanism.

Enhanced Registers and Symbols windows in C-SPY

The C-SPY Symbols and Registers windows have been re-designed with new features. The Symbols window now has a filtering function and a new column displaying to which program module a certain symbol belongs. Some of the new features in the Registers window are drag-and-drop support from source code windows, detailed register tool-tip information, and improved handling of user-defined registers groups.

C-STAT MISRA C

The MISRA C 2004 package in C-STAT has been updated with about 20 new checks, some of which are enabled by default.