What is the best C compiler for the 8051 family? [closed]

Question

We are starting a new project based on an 8051 microcontroller.

Questions:

1. What is the best C compiler to use?
2. Are there any open source 8051 compilers and how good are they?

Answer 1

Keil is what I have used with this microcontroller in the past. They've got a pretty good set of tools. SDCC is also good and free

Answer 2

SDCC is quite good.

Answer 3

Keil is very nice but it limits the amount of code space you can use with the free version. I think the full license is over a thousand bucks which could be prohibative for a one man op. I have just started using SDCC for this reason (I like free things!) and the output isn't quite as pretty but so far it's working well.

Answer 4

SDCC is the one I usually hear about. I've not used it. http://sdcc.sourceforge.net/

Answer 5

One of the companies I worked for uses Keil. All the engineers seem very satisfied with the quality of the assembly code generated by the compiler.

Also, Tasking has some pretty decent tools, but we used it more for the 8051XA family.

Answer 6

No one has mentioned IAR Embedded Workbench for 8051.

I'm used to working with IAR for ARM, and I find the debugger quite powerful.

Answer 7

Keil is provided by atmel and is one of the compilers widely used... being a student maximumof us into microcontrollers use Keil ...

Answer 8

Go For keil . Trail version limits code size to 2kb.