LLVM's 64-bit ARM Back-End Is Almost Merged With Apple's Code

Written by Michael Larabel in LLVM on 9 May 2014 at 02:53 PM EDT. Add A Comment
LLVM
Back in March Apple open-sourced their 64-bit LLVM compiler back-end (ARM64) but by the time that was done there was already a 64-bit ARM back-end (AArch64) present within mainline LLVM that was created by other ARM stakeholders. For the past several weeks, all of the LLVM developers have been working on converting towards a single LLVM 64-bit ARM back-end. In the days ahead, that work should be complete.

LLVM developers have been working on merging code from the long-standing open-source "AArch64" back-end into Apple's "ARM64" back-end. When all of that is complete in the days ahead, Apple's ARM64 compiler back-end with all functionality from the AArch64 back-end will be renamed within the open-source LLVM tree to AArch64.

James Molloy of ARM Holdings provided a status update today in regards to the merging of these two 64-bit ARM back-ends. The final switchover is expected sometime next week and overall there's no major regressions known, the performance is close to the same, and porting of other AArch64-related code is nearly complete.

More information on this 64-bit ARM LLVM work can be found via the LLVM developers' mailing list. This new back-end will be part of the LLVM 3.5 release this summer.
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Michael Larabel is the principal author of Phoronix.com and founded the site in 2004 with a focus on enriching the Linux hardware experience. Michael has written more than 20,000 articles covering the state of Linux hardware support, Linux performance, graphics drivers, and other topics. Michael is also the lead developer of the Phoronix Test Suite, Phoromatic, and OpenBenchmarking.org automated benchmarking software. He can be followed via Twitter, LinkedIn, or contacted via MichaelLarabel.com.

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