SEGGER Embedded Studio – New linker significantly shrinks RISC-V application size

Monheim, Germany – December 11th, 2020

SEGGER’s Embedded Studio for RISC-V now comes with the SEGGER Linker in addition to the GNU linker. The SEGGER Linker has been developed from the ground up to create executables for Embedded Systems.

For RISC-V, it shrinks the size of the resulting programs by up to 15%, shortens link time, delivers a detailed map file and provides more flexibility.

Based on the same code as the SEGGER Linker for ARM, which is well-proven in SEGGER’s leading integrated development environment “Embedded Studio for ARM”, it inherited a lot of noteworthy features, such as integrated integrity check generation with a number of algorithms (CRCs and hashes), the ability to automatically place code and data in non-contiguous regions, and prioritize data into fast memories.

To achieve this improvement in code density, the new RISC-V linker uses a combination of various optimization strategies. Such techniques include ordering code and data in the most efficient way to use short addressing modes, as well as replacing code sequences with more efficient ones, along with the use of spring-boarding technologies.

“This new version of Embedded Studio for RISC-V sets a new standard. The code size reduction achieved by the new linker is astonishing,” says Rolf Segger, Founder of SEGGER. “In combination with the included startup code, runtime library and floating-point library emFloat, which are all highly optimized for RISC-V, it is amazing how small and efficient the resulting RISC-V programs can be. Simply re-linking your application with the SEGGER Linker can reduce code size.”

For more information on SEGGER’s linker, please visit: https://www.segger.com/products/development-tools/embedded-studio/technology/tools/segger-linker/

To obtain more information about SEGGER Embedded Studio, please visit:

https://www.segger.com/products/development-tools/embedded-studio/