Merged ahead of the upcoming GCC 16.1 stable release of the [1]GCC 16 compiler is initial support for the Armv9.6-A target.

[2]Merged a few days ago to GCC Git was the new target options for the Arm 2024 Architecture Extension and Armv9.6-A:

"aarch64: Add new target options for 2024 Architecture Extension and Armv9.6-A

This does not add support for these version (and the corresponding __ARM_FEATURE_ macros aren't implemented for this reason) but accepts the command line strings and allows these to be passed on to the assembler.

Armv9.6-A is supported by the new "armv9.6-a" option and defined as "armv9.5-a+cmpbr+lsui+occmo"

The new extensions are:

- fprcvt (FEAT_FPRCVT)

- lsfe (FEAT_LSFE)

- f8f32mm (FEAT_F8F32MM)

- f8f16mm (FEAT_F8F16MM)

- sme2p2 (FEAT_SME2p2)

- sve2p2 (FEAT_SVE2p2)

- sve-aes2 (FEAT_SVE_AES2)

- sve-f16f32mm (FEAT_SVE_F16F32MM)

- sve-bfscale (FEAT_SVE_BFSCALE)

- ssve-aes (FEAT_SSVE_AES)

- lsui (FEAT_LSUI)

- occmo (FEAT_OCCMO)

- pcdphint (FEAT_PCDPHINT)

- pops (FEAT_PoPS)

- ssve-bitperm (FEAT_SSVE_BitPerm)

- ssve-fexpa (FEAT_SSVE_FEXPA)

- sme-mop4 (FEAT_SME_MOP4)

- sme-tmop (FEAT_TMOP)"

With the newest SoCs still based on Armv9.2-A like the Cortex A520 / A720, Neoverse-V3, and also the Apple M4 and A18, among others, it will likely be some time as usual before seeing Armv9.6-A appear in any available core / SoC designs. The recently announced [3]Arm C1 is based on Armv9.3-A . As mentioned with this GNU Compiler Collection support is just the initial target addition with the new extension work still to come.

All the technical details on the Armv9-6-A extensions can be found via the [4]Arm developer blog .



[1] https://www.phoronix.com/search/GCC+16

[2] https://gcc.gnu.org/git/?p=gcc.git;a=commit;h=cf0a68d0a3d541b3e74acc29f949fe9d9032a2f9

[3] https://www.phoronix.com/news/Arm-Lumex-Platform-C1

[4] https://developer.arm.com/community/arm-comm