Architecture for a next Generation GCC

This paper presents a design and imple-mentation of a whole-program interprocedu-ral optimizer built in the GCC framework. Through the introduction of a new language-independent intermediate representation, we extend the current GCC architecture to include a powerful mid-level optimizer and add link-time interprocedural analysis and optimization capabilities. This intermediate representation is an SSA-based, low-level, strongly-typed, representation which is designed to support both efficient global optimizations and high-level analyses. Because most of the program is available at link-time, aggressive “whole-program ” optimizations and analyses are possi-ble, improving the time and space requirements of compiled programs. The final proposed or-ganization of GCC retains the important fea-tures which make it successful today, requires almost no modification to either the front- or back-ends of GCC, and is completely compat-ible with user makefiles.