An 8051 to ARM Processor Cross Compiler

Emmanuel Merali

Abstract

Modern needs for computational power lead to the development of even more powerful and integrated micro controllers. Some standards such as the 8051 family micro controllers are still dominating the market, but these kinds of devices are relatively limited in speed and tend to reach their limits when the system they control is to be extended. The new generation of RISC processor based micro controllers is an elegant solution to this problem, bringing the power of the RISC processor to the integration of an embedded micro controller. This thesis presents a cross complier able to translate 8051 assembly code into ARM assembly code within the aim of minimising the re-engineering of the original code and easing the passage from an 8051 based system to an ARM based one.