The Secret to Successful Scaling: Use a Flexible Toolchain (.PDF Download)

Embedded development and market demands are growing at breakneck speeds. A recent study conducted by Embedded Computing (Fig. 1) shows that software and software development tools are the number one driving factor when selecting an embedded processor. How can a developer or a team pinpoint the best tools, especially in the vast ARM ecosystem that offers plenty of choices? The answer lies in the toolchain, which can determine how much time and investment the project needs to succeed.

Choosing the right software and tools that scale to the application controller (low-end controllers to application-specific MCUs) and offer easy-to-use, comprehensive software solutions can save you significant time and stretch your tool investment well into the future.

With multiple options among today’s software and development tools to choose from, it can be tough to find the right match, especially as software and tools become more complex and important. Therefore, selection should be done with the future in mind:

• You might end up changing the microcontroller in a next project, because you need different peripherals or more RAM or flash.
• If you select a flexible and scalable toolchain, the ultimate goal is to reuse the environment from project to project and then scale it for any new supported devices.

Flexibility and scalability can be achieved by organizing the set of software and tools based on your needs as building blocks (Fig. 2). The secret is to select and combine the blocks for scalability and reusability in multiple projects.