Synopsys ARC HS4x Processors Now Supported By GCC

The GCC 8 compiler brought the Synopsys ARC CPU target while for the GCC 9 release is going to be support for the company's HS4x processors.

Merged today to mainline GCC is support for the HS4x CPUs within the ARC target. Adding this newer generation of ARC processors to the GNU Compiler Collection code-base was just a few hundred lines of code with building off the existing target code.

The ARC HS4x CPUs like the HS44, HS46, and HS48 are 32-bit superscalar CPUs for embedded environments. The HS44/HS46/HS48 CPUs support up to 1.9GHz clock speeds, 2.5 DMIPS/MHz, and use the ARCv2 instruction set. These embedded ARC processors are used in everything from networking devices and smart IoT appliances to SSD controllers.

This support is in mainline GCC 9.0 ahead of the GCC 9.1 stable release next year.