Obsolete powerpc*-*-*spe*

[Sebastian Huber]

Hello Segher,

On 14/02/17 04:07, Segher Boessenkool wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> I propose to mark powerpc*-*-*spe* as obsolete in GCC 7.  This includes
> the spe.h installed header file, all the __builtin_spe* intrinsics, the
> -mfloat-gprs= command-line option, and the support for the SPE ABIs.
>
> No one has properly tested these targets in a long time (the latest
> testresults I could find are from July 2015, >1000 failures), and the
> SPE support makes a lot of code much more complex.
>
> Any objections to this obsoletion?  GCC 7 will then be the last release
> with support for SPE (it will need --enable-obsolete to build these
> targets), and we will delete the SPE support during GCC 8 development.

the SPE unit is still used in the embedded PowerPC processors from 
Freescale/NXP/Qualcomm, for example QorIQ P1020. These products are not 
obsolete or even not recommended for new designs. These chips have a 
long product life-cycle.

Its a pity that Freescale/NXP/Qualcomm stopped to support GCC 
development and IBM is burdened to take care of this. I can understand 
your reasoning, however, its not true that there are no users of the SPE 
unit.

-- 
Sebastian Huber, embedded brains GmbH

Address : Dornierstr. 4, D-82178 Puchheim, Germany
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