Architecture and device agnostic
The embedded platform for modern software development teams
The platform for embedded development
How our solutions help you
Scale development operations with freedom and flexibility, accelerate innovation with code confidence, and simplify compliance while strengthening security.
Cloud-ready, tailored for enterprises
Scale seamlessly with cloud-powered development
Functional safety always included
Ensure safety compliance from the start
End-to-end embedded security
Secure your embedded systems at every stage
See how it works
What makes the IAR platform different?
See the platform in action and learn how it supports DevOps integration, built-in functional safety and embedded security, flexible licensing, multi-architecture development, and faster, repeatable builds even years after release.
Try out IAR's platform
Interactive demo
What are you looking for?
Find the information that matters to you
Whether you’re evaluating IAR’s solutions, exploring developer capabilities, or just getting started — choose your path below.
IAR's embedded solutions
Looking for proven embedded solutions?
Explore how IAR's platform helps teams meet industry standards, ensure functional safety, and strengthen embedded security— all while accelerating development and compliance.
IAR's features and tools
Are you a developer focused on capabilities?
What is embedded?
New to embedded development tools?
Driving enterprise innovation
Use case videos
Explore how to streamline workflows, adopt cloud-native solutions, and ensure functional safety across diverse architectures. Watch the videos to learn how IAR helps teams develop smarter and faster.
Enabling consistent workflows with containerized and cloud-native solutions
Managing diverse environments and scaling workflows across distributed teams can be overwhelming. Without standardized build environments, maintaining consistency and efficiency becomes a challenge. IAR’s platform supports containerized development and cloud-native workflows, enabling reproducible environments, automation, and scalability. With CI/CD integration suitable for cloud and container-based builds, teams can streamline development, improve collaboration, and accelerate time-to-market.
Scaling development and ensuring functional safety for long-term success
Supporting diverse architectures and unifying development workflows
Siloed tools and vendor-specific dependencies slow down development and increase toolchain complexity. IAR’s unified platform bridges gaps across architectures, enabling seamless collaboration and efficient workflows. With advanced debugging, automation, and CI/CD integration, teams can accelerate development, improve efficiency, and reduce project delays—keeping innovation on track.
Modernizing embedded development at scale
Trusted by industry leaders: IAR in numbers
- 10
pre-certified standards
- 20+
architectures
- 30
times a day you interact with a product made by one of our customers
- 40+
years in business
- 70+
semiconductor partners
- 15k+
supported devices
Ecosystem
Solutions
Our key solutions
Design and code generation
Comprehensive development
Embedded CI/CD
Code quality and compliance
Debugging and trace
Functional safety
Embedded security
Long-term assurance services
Industries
The platform designed for industry-specific needs
IAR’s platform delivers a comprehensive palette of solutions across automotive, industrial automation, medical, machinery control, and more—ensuring development teams stay ahead of regulatory, security, and performance demands.
Automotive
IAR delivers a trusted, safety-certified platform that accelerates development, enhances reliability, and supports major MCUs and MPUs with comprehensive MCAL and AUTOSAR integration, across all...
Industrial automation
Deliver high-quality, efficient, and reliable embedded systems that enhance the industrial automation processes.
Medical
Empower your embedded projects for medical devices and be compliant. Our solutions ensure code quality for safe, fast, and on-time applications.
Machinery control
Unleash the power of machinery control with embedded technology. Our comprehensive range of solutions is designed to address this effectively.
Household appliance
Empower your embedded projects for the household appliance, from automated processes to user inputs. Our solutions ensure code quality for safe, fast, and on-time applications.
Transforming challenges into success
Customer cases
Get inspiration on how world-leading companies enhance their embedded development with our platform.
Casio — Improving time to market
Read caseAlthough we increased performance, we also had to maintain power consumption, which is why we divided processing into two cores. It was a lot of work, but we were able to find a balance between improved performance and power efficiency.
Osong Medical Innovation Foundation – Ensuring medical software certification
Read caseQuality and certification are critical for the future of high-tech medical devices. By using C-STAT, we can improve code quality while preparing for IEC 62304-certified functional safety upgrades to meet regulatory standards.
NEWGIN – Strengthening software quality for the future
Read caseAs firmware complexity grows, we see an increasing need for tools that help ensure software quality. Static analysis and CI tool integration will be key to improving reliability and maintaining high standards in development.
VICTEK – High-quality code for secure IoT systems
Read caseDeveloping low-power IoT systems requires defect-free, high-quality code to ensure secure integration with optimized applications and networks, while minimizing cybersecurity risks.
Landis+Gyr – Early bug detection with static analysis
Read caseTo maintain high product quality, we need tools that catch defects early in development. C-STAT allows us to find bugs faster, reduce time to market, and streamline development costs, making it a core tool across our sites.
Embedded development tools and products
The embedded development tools part of IAR platform
Product
IAR Embedded Workbench
Complete toolchain with an industry-leading compiler, debugger, and analysis tools, ensuring efficient, high-performance embedded development.
Product
IAR Build Tools
Automates builds and testing in CI/CD pipelines with high-performance command-line tools, enabling scalable cloud and on-prem workflows.
Product
IAR C-STAT
Detects defects, security vulnerabilities, and compliance issues early with powerful static analysis for MISRA C/C++, CERT C/C++, and industry standards
Product
IAR C-RUN
Identifies runtime errors, memory leaks, and overflows, improving software reliability and debugging efficiency.
Product
IAR Embedded Trust
Provides a secure development framework with encryption, secure boot, and device authentication for embedded systems.
Product
IAR Embedded Secure IP
Safeguards embedded IP from cloning, tampering, and unauthorized access with strong encryption and device authentication.
Product
IAR Secure Deploy
Protects firmware during production with IP protection, anti-cloning measures, and secure provisioning workflows.
Product
IAR debug probes
High-speed debugging and trace probes enabling real-time analysis, performance optimization, and fault detection for embedded applications.
Product
IAR Visual State
Enables graphical state machine modeling for efficient system design, automated code generation, and validation of complex embedded applications.
Product
IAR VS Code extensions
Enables IAR’s build and debugging tools within Visual Studio Code, providing a modern, flexible development workflow.
Product
IAR Eclipse plugins
The IAR Eclipse plugin integrates IAR’s build toolchains and debuggers into Eclipse, enabling efficient, cross-architecture embedded development with advanced debugging.
Supported devices
How IAR's platform supports your projects and business goals
How can IAR’s platform help in streamline development across multiple architectures without reworking toolchains?
IAR’s platform supports over 20 architectures, including Arm, RISC-V, AVR, RL78 and 8051, providing a unified toolchain that eliminates the need for switching environments.
What’s the best way to integrate IAR’s tools into an existing CI/CD pipeline to improve automation?
IAR integrates with Jenkins, GitHub, GitLab, and Kubernetes, enabling automated builds and continuous testing.
How does IAR’s platform reduce development costs and speed up time-to-market across different projects?
By unifying workflows and enabling automation, IAR’s platform cuts down debugging time, reduces rework, and minimizes certification costs.
What are the business advantages of using a vendor-agnostic embedded development platform?
Vendor lock-in can limit flexibility and increase costs. IAR’s platform ensures teams can work across different microcontrollers and architectures.
How does IAR’s long-term support help us future-proof our embedded product lifecycle?
IAR can provide extended maintenance, compliance updates, and migration support, ensuring software sustainability as hardware evolves.
Key take aways
IAR platform
Scale development with freedom & flexibility
- Enterprise scalability
- Multi-architecture support: Arm, RISC-V, Renesas RX & RL78, AVR, and more
- Unified tools for global teams
- Cloud-native, hybrid, or on-prem enabled workflows
Proven results
- 40% faster platform migration
- Lower costs with flexible deployment
Accelerate innovation with code confidence
- Integrated solutions
- Code quality: Static & runtime analysis for standard compliance
- Performance: Optimized compilers & debugging tools
- CI/CD automation: Kubernetes, Jenkins, GitLab, GitHub integration
Proven results
- 3.5× faster analysis on Linux-based CI/CD
- Higher productivity with automation
Simplify compliance & strengthen security
- Future-proof development
- Functional safety: TÜV-certified for automotive, medical, industrial automation
- Embedded security: IP protection, authentication, compliance
- Continuous updates for evolving standards
Proven results
- 50% defect cost reduction with compliance tools
- Trusted by leading manufacturers
Interested to know more?
Webinars
Learn more
On-demand webinar
On-demand webinar
The backbone of embedded innovation
Learn the basics about embedded development
Here we have gathered questions and answers, why embedded development tools are essential for software developers.
Imagine designing a connected IoT device, an autonomous vehicle system, or a life-saving medical device. The complexity of embedded systems demands precision, efficiency, and reliability—requiring engineers to navigate hardware constraints, real-time performance needs, and compliance standards while keeping up with market demands.
This is where embedded development tools become indispensable. From code compilation to debugging, optimization, and automated builds, these tools help engineers accelerate development, reduce errors, and ensure software reliability. Among these, IAR Embedded Workbench stands out as a comprehensive solution, integrating a compiler, linker, debugger, and runtime analysis tools within a single interface.
Embedded engineers need more than just an IDE—they require debug probes, CI/CD-ready build tools, static and runtime analysis, command-line interfaces, and flexible workflows that adapt to both local and cloud-based development environments.
What are embedded development tools?
Embedded development tools are software and hardware solutions designed to simplify, optimize, and automate embedded system development. They enable engineers to write, compile, test, debug, and optimize firmware running on microcontrollers (MCUs) and processors.
Why are embedded tools essential?
- Code compilation & linking – translating high-level code into machine instructions efficiently
- Debugging & runtime analysis – identifying memory leaks, crashes, and real-time issues
- Command-line and automation support – enabling build automation with tools like CMake, Makefiles, and CI/CD pipelines
- Hardware debugging & monitoring – using JTAG, SWD, and debug probes for real-time execution analysis
- Security & compliance – ensuring compliance with functional safety (ISO 26262, IEC 61508), cybersecurity (IEC 62443), and coding standards (MISRA C, CERT C)
A leading example is IAR Embedded Workbench, which integrates an optimizing compiler, linker, debugger, runtime analysis, and command-line build tools, offering a seamless development experience across multiple architectures.
How to choose the best embedded development tools?
Selecting the right tools ensures efficiency, compatibility, and scalability.
Key factors include:
- Ease of use & productivity
A toolchain should provide intuitive development workflows with integrated debugging, static analysis, and automated testing.
- Compatibility with hardware
Support for multiple MCUs and architectures (Arm, RISC-V, MSP430, AVR, Renesas RL78) is crucial. IAR Embedded Workbench supports a broad range of architectures, ensuring developers have flexibility in their projects.
- Debugging & optimization
Real-time debugging, trace analysis, and runtime profiling are essential for reliability.
- Scalability & CI/CD integration
Tools should support command-line builds (CLI), CMake, and integration with CI/CD platforms like GitHub, GitLab, and Jenkins for automated testing.
- Security & compliance
Coding standards (MISRA, CERT C), security frameworks (IEC 62443), and functional safety (ISO 26262, IEC 61508) should be built-in.
Which embedded development tools should you know about?
| Category | Examples |
|
IDEs |
IAR Embedded Workbench, Keil, Eclipse |
|
Compilers & linkers |
IAR C/C++ Compiler, GCC, LLVM |
|
Debuggers & probes |
JTAG, GDB, IAR C-SPY Debugger, I-jet |
|
IoT kits |
Raspberry Pi, STM32 discovery kits, ST Nucleo boards |
|
RTOS tools |
FreeRTOS, ThreadX, PX5 RTOS, Zephyr RTOS |
What are the advantages of using embedded development tools?
- Efficiency – automate builds, debugging, and deployment with CLI tools
- Cost-savings – reduce debugging time and prevent costly errors
- Reliability – ensure functional safety and compliance with analysis tools
- Security – detect vulnerabilities and prevent cyber threats
IAR Embedded Workbench
combines all these benefits, streamlining embedded workflows from development to production.
What are the common pitfalls when selecting embedded tools?
Choosing the wrong tools can lead to inefficiencies and costly mistakes. Here’s a quick checklist to help avoid common pitfalls:
|
Common mistakes |
Avoidance checklist |
|
Limited architecture support |
Select tools with broad compatibility (Arm, RISC-V, etc.) |
|
Weak debugging features |
Ensure real-time debugging, profiling, and trace analysis support |
|
No CI/CD integration |
Choose tools with CLI, CMake, and pipeline support |
|
Overlooking compliance needs |
Use tools that support MISRA C/C++, ISO 26262, IEC 61508 |
What is IoT development kits?
These kits simplify IoT firmware and hardware integration, allowing developers to prototype and deploy IoT applications.
- Examples: Raspberry Pi, STM32 discovery kits, ST Nucleo boards
What are Firmware development tools?
Firmware tools help engineers write, test, and optimize code for low-power and high-performance embedded devices.
- Examples: IAR Embedded Workbench, MPLAB X, Atmel Studio
What are Real-time operating system (RTOS) tools?
RTOS solutions manage real-time tasks, ensuring predictable system behavior in time-sensitive applications.
- Examples: FreeRTOS, ThreadX, PX5 RTOS, Zephyr RTOS
What’s ahead for embedded development tools?
The next wave of embedded tools will focus on:
- Cloud-native development – enabling remote debugging and cloud CI/CD automation
- Low-power profiling tools – optimizing energy efficiency in battery-powered IoT devices
- Open-source collaboration – expanding community-driven tools for cross-platform development
IAR continues to lead innovation in embedded tools, adapting to these trends while ensuring performance, security, and efficiency.
Blog posts
Functional safety, Debugging, Automotive