Semiconductor firm ARM has released its Development Studio 5 (DS-5) Community Edition (CE), a free edition of its reference software development toolkit for Android application developer community to help them create native software for compute intensive tasks that can run up to four times faster than Java code.
With DS-5 CE, developers are provided with a set of tools to help them achieve the performance and energy-efficiency advantages made possible when ARM native code is used in Android applications and the toolkit permits development of Java and C/C++ code in the same Eclipse integrated development environment (IDE) to maximise productivity and ease of use.
DS-5 Community Edition solves common Android application developer pain points by providing an integrated graphical debugger for NDK-generated code and visibility of advanced processor information, including ARM NEON Single Instruction Multiple Data (SIMD) registers.
The new toolkit includes a tailored version of the ARM Streamline Performance Analyzer for use with compatible Android development platforms where Streamline helps developers to locate hotspots in their code and isolate potential causes by capturing detailed, system-wide performance statistics from a variety of sources.
ARM System Design Division executive vice-president and general manager John Cornish said with over half a million apps on the Android market today, developers need to deliver an outstanding user experience to succeed commercially.
"ARM DS-5 Community Edition offers developers an easy to use environment for debugging and optimising C/C++ code. This allows them to take full advantage of ARM processor technology using native code to deliver the performance and functionality that consumers demand," said Cornish.
