Intel Looking To Drop Their Nios II Backend From LLVM

One of the lesser known compiler backends/targets by the LLVM compiler is Nios II, which is for the 32-bit embedded FPGA processor designs.

Of course, Intel acquired Altera back in 2015 and has been focusing upon the Intel Stratix hardware as their current FPGA focus. For Nios II coverage there's long been an out-of-tree GCC-derived compiler while the LLVM back-end hasn't received much attention. It seems the LLVM support for Nios II isn't widely used as the Intel developers are now looking to drop this back-end.

In fact, the Nios2 LLVM back-end with being broken for months before it was noticed. Additionally, the experimental target has never been full-featured to the extent that the Intel compiler developers would rather just drop the code.

A notice was sent out on Monday asking to drop the Nios2 back-end from LLVM. Additionally, it was mentioned that due to an "internal priority change" it doesn't look like they would be able to improve the state of the code in the near future.

For those needing compiler coverage of Nios II, there is the Nios II EDS (Embedded Design Suite) with their GCC-based compiler.