Americas
e2studio
News
- e2studio V2.0 installer now available for download!
Overview
Renesas eclipse embedded studio, known as e²studio, is a complete development and debug environment based on the popular Eclipse CDT project. Essentially open source, the Eclipse CDT covers build (editor, compiler and linker control) as well as debug phase based on an extended GDB interface.
A wide range of compilers can be integrated into e²studio to ensure customer has the choice of tools to match their project requirements. When combined with the extremely powerful editor functionality and project management tools automatically built into Eclipse CDT, e²studio offers a state of the art coding environment for Renesas embedded controllers.
To complete the development cycle, Renesas has developed a range of GDB debuggers to interface between the coding environment and a range of on-chip and in-circuit emulators.
Editor Features
The Eclipse CDT editor built into e²studio offers extremely powerful functionality specifically designed for C/C++ developers.
These features include:
- Automatic code completion
- keyword colour coding of source code
- Built in spell checker
- Powerful code navigation
- Comment and code folding options
- Jump to declarations
- Automated code formatting (brace matching, comment blocks etc)
- Code templates
- Automated code constructs (if, while, do..while etc)
- In edit pre-processor checking (#ifdef code low-lighted if not true)
- Auto variable completion while writing
- Import projects from High-performance Embedded Workshop to e²studio (SuperH, RX)
- Import / export projects between CubeSuite+ and e²studio (RX)
Target Devices
e²studio has been developed to support the key promotion families of Renesas controllers:
- RL78 Family
- RX Family
- RH850 Family*
- SuperH Family (SH-2 and SH-2A)
RH850* support will follow soon after with scheduled updates.
As new devices are released from Renesas, e²studio can easily be updated to add the necessary support files and debugger extensions.
* Note, RH850 debugger support is currently in development.
Target Build Plug-ins
- Renesas compiler toolchain (RX, SuperH)
- KPIT GNU toolchains (RL78, RX, RH850*, SuperH)
- IAR build plug-ins (RL78, RX, RH850*)
- Green Hills build plug-ins (RH850*)
* Note, RH850 debugger support is currently in development.
Target Debuggers
Key to the flexibility of e²studio is the integration of on-chip debuggers and in-circuit emulators.
| Target Device | Renesas E1 | Renesas E20 | Renesas IECUBE | Renesas IECUBE2 | Renesas E10A-USB | Segger J-Link |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| RL78 | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No | No |
| RX200 | Yes | Yes | No | No | No | Yes |
| RX600 | Yes | Yes | No | No | No | Yes |
| RH850* | Yes | Yes | No | No | No | No |
| SH-2/SH-2A | No | No | No | No | Yes | No |
* Note, RH850 debugger support is currently in development.
Project Generators
e²studio includes a project generator to speed up the initial project set up. The development engineer is offered a selection of device, initial compiler options and debuggers. e²studio will then prepare a preconfigured project with all the necessary support files such as device specific headers etc. The project is now ready to build and debug.
Compiler Option Control
e²studio controls project builds using a managed make system. This is largely transparent to the user; however control of the compiler, assembler and linker options can be updated using the built-in GUI.
On Line Updates
Built into the basic Eclipse functionality is the ability to update either the entire installation or selected plug-ins from inside the environment. e²studio makes use of this capability to easily deliver updates to the project generator and debugger plug-ins as necessary.
User can define how often e²studio searches for updates and how they are applied to the installation, ensuring that the latest tools are always available.
Separate Plug-ins
Renesas can supply complete installation versions of e²studio for new customers or a set of plug-ins that can be installed into an existing Eclipse environment. There is a pre-requisite that the base version of Eclipse must be Eclipse Juno SR1 release, build against the 3.8 framework.
From within e²studio or other Eclipse Juno CDT installations, the Renesas specific plug-ins can be downloaded or updated using the URL below.
http://www2.renesas.eu/_custom/software/ree_eclipse
*The update site URL (http://www2.renesas.eu/_custom/software/ree_eclipse) is valid as it can only be accessed from inside e²studio to update the product.
Debugger Plug-ins
The standard GDB debugger supplied as part of the Eclipse CDT includes support for common debug functionality such as CPU register display, memory manipulation, simple breakpoints and run control.
All of these features have been implemented in e²studio however Renesas has also developed a number of extensions to enable access to advanced debug functionality available on the target devices.
Extended debugger plug-ins are supplied in e²studio to support real time memory, real time trace, peripheral register display and complex hardware event breakpoints etc. The exact feature support depends on the device family and debug hardware used.
Design Overview
Renesas have taken great care to build e2studio on the standard Eclipse CDT environment. This allows for the product to closely follow the release train of Eclipse CDT ensuring a future proof development environment.
Three basic software groups can be considered to make up e²studio.
Firstly the open sourced Eclipse CDT & GDB components (in blue) running on a standard Java runtime. These are maintained by the Eclipse Foundation and are out of scope of the e²studio project. Renesas aim not to make any modifications to this code to ensure compatibility with later releases.
Renesas however have developed an number of “User Experience” improvements to integrate the advanced debugger features such as real time trace, real time memory access etc to the standard GDB.
These are indicated in red and form the main part of the e²studio plug-in set.
Finally third parties such as IAR Systems, Green Hills Software and KPIT have contributed a set of plug-ins to control their compilers, indicated in green. These are supplied free of charge, however the compiler itself should be purchased or downloaded through normal sales channels.
Supported Host Operating Systems
Windows XP 32-bit, Windows 7 32-bit and Windows 7 64-bit, Windows 8 32-bit and Windows 8 64-bit are the officially supported OS platforms for the product.
