New Qualcomm Saphira Server CPU Added To GCC

Details are very scarce on the new Qualcomm "Saphira" processor, but initial support for it was added this week to the GNU Compiler Collection (GCC).

Qualcomm Saphira isn't turning up much in search engines besides some trademark applications and the likes, but this new CPU is seeing quick support in GCC, perhaps due to GCC 8 feature development ending soon.

The basic patch adds the new -mcpu and -mtune options for this "saphira" model name. The patch confirms that Qualcomm Saphira is an ARMv8.3-A processor and is making use of the company's Falkor CPU cores. Falkor only ended up getting officially announced this summer as a CPU core built for "cloud workloads" and servers and is a fully-custom ARM design. There can be up to 48 Falkor CPUs on a single SoC.

Qualcomm had been using the "Centriq" branding around the Falkor CPU cores while now there is this new Saphira that is for either next-gen or targeting a different segment. We should see soon enough.

Saphira also turned up in LLVM Git for LLVM/Clang 6.0 quietly one month ago.

Perhaps we'll hear more of Qualcomm's Saphira next week at SC17.