SplitCode

SplitCode partitions an embedded (uC) project into two chunks so that the stable and the evolving part of the firmware end up in two separate memory regions. That way typically only a small, recently modified evolving chunk needs to be repeatedly uploaded to uC during time-consuming development stage.

The method is a significant improvement over a classic build style when the firmware upload takes more than ~5 seconds (above ~16kiB of flash with ST-Link/V2).

The link-time partitioning process is transparent and is based on several policies to choose from. The choice of a policy is a trade-off in between the burden of reprogramming and the flexibility of changes to make. These span from release-like policies where single modification requires full flashing to some that allow convenient 3s update even after major tweaks.

The example given is a complete Eclipse CDT project (gcc-arm-embedded), configured for STM32L-Discovery + OpenOCD and can be tailored to any architecture or IDE