embedded software boot camp

Tools to help lower power consumption

Tuesday, June 29th, 2010 by Nigel Jones

Regular readers will know that low power designs are an interest of mine. Indeed one of the very first blog posts I made lamented how difficult it is to ascertain how much energy it takes to perform various tasks typical to an embedded system. Thus it was a pleasant surprise to receive an IAR newsletter today announcing a tool (‘Power debugging’) that is explicitly designed to help one lower a system’s power consumption. The tool isn’t available yet, but if the propaganda is to be believed it should be a very interesting adjunct to the debugging arsenal. The sign up procedure to beta test the tool doesn’t seem to work properly, but on the assumption that I made it onto the beta tester list I will  post a review once I get my hands on it.

BTW I have to admit I found the name of the article / tool (‘Power debugging’) a bit confusing in the sense that I interpreted power in the vernacular sense (e.g. ‘power walking’, ‘power breakfast’) rather than the engineering sense. I guess I’m just a victim of so much marketing hyperbole that I can’t recognize plain talk any more. Oh well!

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