GCC Picks Up Support For Newer Loongson Processors

Ahead of the GCC 9 feature freeze later this month, support for several newer Loongson processors have been picked up by this leading open-source compiler.

As of today in GCC Git/SVN, the Loongson 2K1000, 3A1000, 3A2000, and 3A3000 processors are supported by the GCC compiler. In the process, the Loongson MMI, EXT, and EXT2 instructions are added as well. These processors were previously floating on the mailing list.

3A1000 dates back almost a decade while the Loongson 3A3000 is at least their newest model for this MIPS64R2 processor with ~1.5GHz clock speed and four cores. The Loongson 3A3000 is manufactured on a 28nm processor and has around a 30 Watt power draw. These MIPS processors tend to be hard to come by outside of China.

GCC 9.1.0 will be the first stable release of GCC9 that will be coming out in early 2019.