RELEASE NOTES
=============

Product   : GNU C Compiler Toolkit for ARC Processors
MileStone : First release of the upgraded toolchain
Version   : GNU binutils 2.15 codito-20050523-release
	    GCC 3.4.4 codito 20050523 [ derived from FSF snapshot on 26th Jan 
	    2005 ]
Date      : May 23 2005

Table of Contents
-----------------

1.  Overview
2.  Features Supported
3.  Major back-end changes since the gcc-2.95.3 based GNU-Toolchain
4.  Known Limitations and Defects
5.  Contact Information
6.  Reference 


1.  Overview
------------
    This is the first release of the upgraded GNU Tools for the ARC. This 
    release includes the following:

    * gcc-3.4.4 26 Jan 2005 snapshot
    * binutils-2.15
    * newlib 1.12.0
    * ARC GNU Tools User Guide
    * Build scripts

2.  Features Supported
----------------------

    2.1 Features of the first upgrade release (May 23 2005)
    -------------------------------------------------------
    * Improved ABI compatibility
    * Support for extension instructions for ARCtangent-A5, ARC600 and ARC700 
      processors
    * Support for builtins (compiler intrinsics) as an interface for generating
      assembly instructions.
    * Better support for DWARF-2 debug information generation.
    * newlib is now built for big-endian targets as well.
    * Numerous bug-fixes and cleanups.

3. Major back-end changes since the gcc-2.95.3 based GNU-Toolchain
------------------------------------------------------------------
    With the upgrade project, the GNU Tools for ARC processors have undergone 
    major changes. The most significant of these are listed below:

    * The compiler does not prepend an underscore to symbol names. This also 
      means that the binaries generated by the older toolchain will not be 
      compatible with the new tools, as the symbol names will not match any 
      more.

    * The relocation values used by the binutils have been made compliant to 
      the latest ABI specification by ARC International. Thus the binaries 
      generated by the older version of binutils will not be compatible with 
      those generated with the latest binutils packaged with this release.
    
    * The relocations generated by the binutils do not contain any in-place 
      addends, as the addend for the relocation is stored only in the 
      relocation table.

    * The following compiler switches have been removed:
	   -menable-zol
	   -mdisable-zol
	   -mmangle-cpu

    * The following compiler switches have been added:
	   -mnorm
	   -mswap
	   -mmul64
      These switches should be used in conjunction with the builtins provided 
      by the compiler. For more details, please refer to the ARC GNU Tools 
      User Guide included in the release.
      
      Apart from these, a flag (-mbarrel-shifter) has been added to enable 
      generation of barrel shift instructions for ARCtangent-A4 processor.

4. Known Limitations and Defects
--------------------------------
    * Position Independent Code generation support is only available for the 
      ARC700 processor.

5. Contact Information  
----------------------
   In case of any defects please contact arc-support@codito.com.
   If you have a support contract, please use the support site at 
   http://support.codito.com.
 
6. References
-------------
    * ARC700 ISA Reference Manual
    * ARC GNU Tools User Guide
    * Sys V ABI Extension for ELF for the ARC


Tools Team 
Codito Technologies