As a small consultancy in the UK, competing for a limited number of jobs, I find Keil's uVision / MDK to be cost prohibitive.
I would dearly love to include ARM based devices in the designs I make, but since I only need to go as far as proof-of-concept with prototypes, the cost of the development tools is excessive for me.
The project I'm currently working on has an Audio Processor with a Cortex-M3 core. I'm not trying to build the full firmware suite - that will be outsourced - but I do need to get as far as proof-of-concept with the firmware.
Are there any free or lower-cost alternatives that provide a decent IDE, linker and compiler for ARM based devices? If they are compatible with the ULINK2 that would be a benefit too.
**EDIT** Spelling / grammar.