GCC for ARM, AVR and BlackFin

What’s included

Using the following links you can download the GNU compiler toolset, compiled for the various processor targets. The toolset runs under Windows, and was compiled using the MinGW environment. The following components are included:

GCC 4.2.0 for AVR processors

  • GCC C compiler front-end version 4.2.0
  • C++ compiler front-end version 4.2.0
  • AVR-elf target code generators version 4.2.0
  • Bin-utils for ARM-elf target version 2.17.50
  • AVR-libc runtime libraries version 1.4.6

GCC 4.2.0 for BlackFin processors

  • GCC C compiler front-end version 4.2.0
  • C++ compiler front-end version 4.2.0
  • BFin-elf target code generators version 4.2.0
  • Bin-utils for ARM-elf target version 2.17.50
  • Newlib runtime libraries version 1.15.0
  • elf2ldr utility to convert ELF output files from the linker to LDR files, downloadable to the processor

GCC 4.0.1 for ARM processors

  • GCC C compiler front-end version 4.0.1
  • C++ compiler front-end version 4.0.1
  • Objective C compiler front-end version 4.0.1
  • Java compiler front-end version 4.0.1
  • Fortran 95 compiler front-end version 4.0.1
  • ADA compiler front-end version 4.0.1
  • ARM-elf target code generators version 4.0.1
  • Bin-utils for ARM-elf target version 2.16.1
  • Newlib runtime libraries version 1.13.0

GCC 4.0 for ARM processors

  • GCC C compiler front-end version 4.0
  • C++ compiler front-end version 4.0
  • Objective C compiler front-end version 4.0
  • Java compiler front-end version 4.0
  • Fortran 95 compiler front-end version 4.0
  • ADA compiler front-end version 4.0
  • ARM-elf target code generators version 4.0
  • Bin-utils for ARM-elf target version 2.15.94
  • Newlib runtime libraries version 1.13.0

GCC 3.4.0 for ARM processors

  • GCC C compiler front-end version 3.4.0
  • C++ compiler front-end version 3.4.0
  • Objective C compiler front-end version 3.4.0
  • Java compiler front-end version 3.4.0
  • Fortran compiler front-end version 3.4.0
  • ADA compiler front-end version 3.4.0
  • ARM-elf target code generators version 3.4.0
  • Bin-utils for ARM-elf target version 2.15.90
  • Newlib runtime libraries from their CVS repository as of 05/12/04

GCC 3.3.1 for ARM processors

  • GCC C compiler front-end version 3.3.1
  • C++ compiler front-end version 3.3.1
  • Objective C compiler front-end version 3.3.1
  • Java compiler front-end version 3.3.1
  • Fortran compiler front-end version 3.3.1
  • ADA compiler front-end version 3.3.1
  • Pascal compiler front-end version 3.3.1
  • ARM-elf target code generators version 3.3.1
  • Bin-utils for ARM-elf target version 2.14.90
  • Newlib runtime libraries from their CVS repository as of 10/21/03

A version of GDB and Insight is also available for download. It’s pre-compiled for the ARM-elf target and was compiled under the Cygwin. I’ve tried to pack all the required support-DLLs in the package but if you have problems of missing DLLs, you can get them by installing the Cygwin enviroment from here. The debugger can be used with the USB programmer and CPLD-based programmer JTAG ICEs to debug embedded targets but contains a simulator too so you can test your code without the actual HW.

I’ve separated the Java compiler and the libraries out from the main compiler set to reduce the file size, so you can save yourself 53MBytes worth of download time if you are not planning on using the Java language.

Download

AVR GCC 4.2.0

  • GCC 4.2.0 for AVR-elf targets (27MBytes) DOWNLOAD

BlackFin GCC 4.2.0

  • GCC 4.2.0 for BFin-elf targets (74MBytes) DOWNLOAD
  • elf2ldr with sources (54kBytes) DOWNLOAD

ARM GCC 4.0.1

  • GCC 4.0.1 for ARM-elf targets (86MBytes) DOWNLOAD
  • Java libraries 4.0.1 for ARM-elf targets (76MBytes) DOWNLOAD

ARM GCC 4.0

  • GCC 4.0 for ARM-elf targets (41MBytes) DOWNLOAD
  • Java libraries 4.0 for ARM-elf targets (76MBytes) DOWNLOAD

ARM GCC 3.4.0

  • GCC 3.4.0 for ARM-elf targets (38MBytes) DOWNLOAD
  • GJC Java compiler and libraries 3.4.0 for ARM-elf targets (58MBytes) DOWNLOAD

ARM GCC 3.3.1

  • GCC 3.3.1 for ARM-elf targets (43MBytes) DOWNLOAD
  • GJC Java compiler and libraries 3.3.1 for ARM-elf targets (53MBytes) DOWNLOAD

ARM GDB and Insight 6.0

  • GDB/Insight 6.0 for ARM-elf targets (13MBytes) DOWNLOAD

Install notes

First of all, I had no time to test all to tools, so use them at your own risk. If you find a problem, you are welcome to report it to me.

I’ve used the following configure options to compile the tools:

AVR GCC 4.2.0

BlackFin GCC 4.2.0

ARM GCC 4.0.1

ARM GCC 4.0

ARM GCC 3.4.0

ARM GCC 3.3.1

From this you see that the install directory should be ‘c:/gcc-avr-4.2.0 ‘‘c:/gcc-bfin-elf-4.2.0’‘c:/gcc-arm-elf-4.0.1’‘c:/gcc-arm-elf-4.0.0’‘c:/gcc-arm-elf-3.3.1’ or ‘c:/gcc-arm-elf-3.4.0’ respectively. Though my experience is that the compiler isn’t that sensitive for the install path, it appeared to me that the ADA compiler actually requires the files to be in that location. All in all, you can try put the tools into whatever location you whish but if you experience problems, that’s one thing to look at.

Anything newer than the 3.3.1 verision is too new to have GPC support so the Pascal front-end is missing from those toolsets. Also note that I previously had some problems generating the ADA runtime library and ADA tools so those are missing from the distribution as well, except for the latest ARM compiler version.

To install the toolset, do the following:

  • Download the files, you need
  • Create the above mentioned directory(s)
  • Uncompress the content of the file(s) to the newly created directory
  • Add <target dir>\bin to your path

How to use

Here’s a simple example to use the ARM toolset. We want to compile a simple application, from two files STARTUP.S and PROGRAM.C:

Here we created two object files, one from the asm, one from the C source, linked them together (with 0-based executable segment) and extracted the binary image from the output of the linker. This last file, APPLICATION.BIN is the binary image, ready to be downloaded to the targets’ memory.

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5 thoughts on “GCC for ARM, AVR and BlackFin

  1. Hi , I am using you GCJ compiler for java, could you please advice how to compile java file for Arm.I tried compiling java file using arm-elf-gcjm but it is throwing an error “installation problem, cannot exec ‘as’. Please advice

    • This very much sounds like a setup problem: you don’t seem to have as.exe in the ‘arm-elf\bin’ directory of your arm-elf-gcj installation. I’m not sure why that would be the case, but when I delete it from my installation, I get the error message you are referring to. I hope this helps,

      Andras Tantos

  2. Pingback: LPC2194 « fuzzysy

    • The short answer is that you have to write one. The long(er) answer is that every microcontroller is different and needs somewhat different initialization before you can jump into C code. Your reset and interrupt vectors can be in different places, your memory layout is different, so you stack might live in different places. You’ll have to set these things up before you can invoke C code (either the CRT startup code or main). Many microcontroller vendors supply such some kind of STARTUP.s these days, but than again those might be tailored to their compiler or runtime library. To give you an example, here’s one STARTUP.s I’ve written a long time ago:


      /*
      ****************************************************************************
      Startup code for ROM monitor. The goal is to minimize changes to
      the CPU state. designed for the ATMEL AT91R400008 CPU.
      - Sets up stack
      - Executes main
      This code is very simple. It does not initializes any globals, or atexit
      lists. It does not work with a full C CRT library!
      The code auto-detects the mode it's started in. It assumes that if it's
      running from ROM (i.e. it cannot modify the content of the text segment)
      It's executing before-remap mode and if it can, it executes in after-remap
      mode.
      ****************************************************************************
      */
      .text
      .code 32
      .align 0

      /*IMPORTED FUNCTIONS*/
      .extern main

      /*EXPORTED FUNCTIONS*/
      /*- In ELF mode "_start" is the entry point of the application */
      .global _start

      /*DEFINES*/
      .equ RAM_OFS_BR ,0x00300000 /* SRAM base address (before REMAP mode) */
      .equ RAM_OFS ,0x00000000 /* SRAM base address (after REMAP mode) */
      .equ RAM_OVR_SIZE ,2048
      .equ RAM_SIZE ,256*1024 /* Size of the SRAM memory */
      .equ STACK_SIZE ,8192
      .equ STACK_START ,RAM_OFS+RAM_SIZE-RAM_OVR_SIZE
      .equ STACK_START_BR ,RAM_OFS_BR+RAM_SIZE-RAM_OVR_SIZE

      /* Program starts here: */
      _start:
      /* For ICE (in-circuit debugger) mode, we run from RAM, but before */
      /* remap. We don't need any of these (we're starting at 0x0030000. */
      /* We only have to setup the stack and jump to main. That's all... */
      .ifndef ICEMODE
      B resetvec /* reqset offset 0x0000000*/
      B undefvec /* Udef offset 0x0000004*/
      B swivec /* SW offset 0x0000008*/
      B pabtvec /* P abt offset 0x000000c*/
      B dabtvec /* D abt offset 0x0000010*/
      B rsvdvec /* reserved offset 0x0000014*/
      B irqvec /* IRQ offset 0x0000018*/
      B fiqvec /* FIQ offset 0x000001c*/

      undefvec:
      B undefvec
      swivec:
      B swivec
      pabtvec:
      B pabtvec
      dabtvec:
      B pabtvec
      rsvdvec:
      B rsvdvec
      irqvec:
      B irqvec
      fiqvec:
      B fiqvec

      resetvec:
      /* Setup stack. The address contains the before-remap stack location. */
      /* Try to write in the after-remap stack location and read it back. */
      /* Depending on wether we're in ROM or RAM, the stack will be set up */
      /* correctly. */
      ldr sp, =STACK_START
      str sp, StackStart
      ldr sp, StackStart
      .else
      ldr sp, =STACK_START_BR
      .endif
      bl main
      /* If main terminates for whatever reason, restart the whole thing */
      b _start
      StackStart:
      .word STACK_START_BR

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