Green Hills Software Inc reckons it is the first company to come out with an implementation of Embedded C++, a subset of C++ optimized for resource-constrained embedded applications. Embedded C++ is a year-and-a-half old initiative by a set of giant Japanese companies: Hitachi Ltd, NEC Corp, Fujitsu Ltd and Toshiba Corp, to address the problems of using C++ for embedded, real-time applications. Using standard ANSI C++ results in large and complex code with the inevitable memory and performance overheads. Embedded C++ takes out such complexities as multiple inheritance, virtual base classes, exceptions, runtime type identification, virtual function tables and mutable specifiers. In their place it adds a set of libraries to fill in some of the gaps in functionality. The result is intended to be smaller and less complex code. Green Hills has gone to programming guru P J Plauger’s Dinkumware Ltd of Concord, Massachusetts, for its set of libraries, and has developed what it calls a scalable compiler, which can be switched from producing full ANSI C down to Embedded C of even further to smaller subsets of the language. It runs on Motorola 68000 and Power PC processors, with versions for the Hitachi SH, MIPS, Coldfire and NEC V800 processors following later this year. The official Embedded C++ specification is set to be ratified by the EC+ Technical Committee in a few weeks time, co-inciding with the Embedded Systems Conference in San Jose, California. Green Hills vice president of marketing John Carbone says he thinks Embedded C++ hits the sweet spot between C and C++, and believes it will be widely taken up in the US as well as in Japan. He claims one of the world’s two largest telecommunications companies has already signed up as a customer for the Green Hills version. Green Hills is based in Santa Barbara.
