[llvm-dev] [RFC] Adding ARC backend

[Pete Couperus via llvm-dev]

Hello,

We at Synopsys would like to propose integration of a backend targeting
the Synopsys ARC architecture.  ARC is a configurable 32-bit processor
family with a variety of optional extensions.
See:
https://www.synopsys.com/designware-ip/processor-solutions/arc-processors.html

We have been using LLVM internally for a number of years.  The current
plan, if accepted by the community, is to contribute an minimal,
functional backend that would be an experimental target while we
incrementally add features until we have a more fully featured backend.

About ARC:
* There are two currently supported ISA versions supported by gcc, v1 and v2.
* The ARC ISA is a mixed 32-/16-bit ISA.
* Has both big and little endian modes.
* Individual instructions may have different variants and encodings.
* Is configurable with a number of instructions that can be configured
  in or out of a particular processor configuration.

The current proposed submission:
* Only targets ARC v2.
* Includes a small functional subset of the 32-bit ISA, little endian.
* Targets a fixed subset of the ARC v2 ISA.
* Focuses on C99 support.
* Implements Target registration, and a SelectionDAG based instruction selector.
* Implements Register and the ISA specification for current subset.
* Implements the Assembly printer and disassembler.

See:
https://reviews.llvm.org/D36331

Following shortly:
* Clang driver and target triple support.

Planned:
* C++ (Exception Handling).
* Assembly Parsing/Direct ELF emission.
* GlobalISel.

With community agreement, our plan is to:
1. Contribute the current fixed configuration target.
2. Incrementally add the currently missing variants
   and additional instructions for this fixed target.
3. Add support for different ARC configurations and
   target specific features.
4. Implement the planned features from the LLVM framework
   not specific to ARC.

Thanks for reading this far, feedback and comments welcome!

Pete

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.llvm.org/pipermail/llvm-dev/attachments/20170804/c775fac2/attachment.html>