RISC-V Software News

December 2025 — Upstream Open Source Activity

The Big Picture

In December 2025, the RISC-V ecosystem saw 256 commits across 12 projects. The most active projects were LLVM (RISC-V) (127), OpenSBI (40), GCC (RISC-V) (31). The extension landscape saw work on QC_EXTU, QC_SETWMI, Zfinx, Zicond, Zifencei, Zihintntl, Zvfh. Most-discussed mailing list thread: "riscv: Add RVV memset for both multiarch and non-multiarch builds" (glibc (RISC-V), 10 replies).

RISC-V International

The spec repos saw 74 commits this month, led by ISA Manual with 72 commits.

Spec Repository Activity

RepositoryCommitsContributors
ISA Manual 72 19
ELF psABI 2 1

Community Buzz (r/RISCV)

The most popular posts on r/RISCV this month, ranked by upvotes.

Linux Kernel (RISC-V)

25
Commits
16
Contributors
781
Lines Added
60
Lines Removed

A steady month for Linux Kernel (RISC-V) with 25 commits from 16 contributors. Platform and DT work accounted for 10 commits.

10 Device tree / platform support 5 New features & support 3 ISA extensions 3 Bug fixes 2 Interrupt controllers (AIA/APLIC/PLIC) 1 Performance optimisations

Notable Changes

  • riscv: Add SBI debug trigger extension and function ids (5efaf92da4, Himanshu Chauhan)
  • riscv: add ISA extension parsing for Zilsd and Zclsd (3f0cbfb8a1, Pincheng Wang)
  • irqchip/riscv-imsic: Add a CPU pm notifier to restore the IMSIC on exit (f48b4bd091, Nick Hu)
  • lib/crypto: riscv: Depend on RISCV_EFFICIENT_VECTOR_UNALIGNED_ACCESS (1cd5bb6e9e, Eric Biggers)
  • riscv: hwprobe: export Zilsd and Zclsd ISA extensions (6118ebed3b, Pincheng Wang)
  • riscv: dts: spacemit: Add a PCIe regulator (73a6c811fa, Alex Elder)
  • riscv: mm: use xchg() on non-atomic_long_t variables, not atomic_long_xchg() (and 2 more) (e0e51a0de0, Paul Walmsley)
  • riscv: dts: starfive: Append JH-7110 SoC compatible to VisionFive 2 Lite eMMC board (4297ddbf1d, E Shattow)
  • riscv: dts: spacemit: Define the P1 PMIC regulators for Milk-V Jupiter (and 2 more) (7d307daa12, Javier Martinez Canillas)
  • riscv: dts: starfive: Append JH-7110 SoC compatible to VisionFive 2 Lite board (7c9a5fd6bb, E Shattow)
  • riscv: boot: Always make Image from vmlinux, not vmlinux.unstripped (66562b66dc, Vivian Wang)
  • riscv/atomic.h: use RISCV_FULL_BARRIER in _arch_atomic* function. (f02dd25472, Zongmin Zhou)
  • irqchip/riscv-aplic: Preserve APLIC states across suspend/resume (95a8ddde36, Nick Hu)
  • riscv: fix KUnit test_kprobes crash when building with Clang (641ecc8900, Jiakai Xu)
  • riscv: dts: microchip: convert clock and reset to use syscon (26535e8444, Conor Dooley)

Top Contributors

AuthorCommits
Javier Martinez Canillas3
Paul Walmsley3
Alex Elder2
E Shattow2
Conor Dooley2
Pincheng Wang2
Nick Hu2
Jiakai Xu1
Lukas Gerlach1
Vivian Wang1

OpenSBI

40
Commits
14
Contributors
2261
Lines Added
733
Lines Removed

A productive month for OpenSBI with 40 commits from 14 contributors. Top contributor: Anup Patel with 8 commits. New feature work included 12 commits: "platform: generic: eswin: Add shutdown/reboot support for Hifive Premier P550"; "lib: utils/serial: Support multiple UART8250 devices". Bug fixes accounted for 6 commits (15%). 2 commits targeted performance improvements.

12 New features & support 6 Bug fixes 2 Performance optimisations 1 ISA extensions 1 Device tree / platform support

Notable Changes

  • platform: generic: eswin: Add shutdown/reboot support for Hifive Premier P550 (73183a60ab, Bo Gan)
  • lib: utils/cache: Add SiFive Extensible Cache (EC) driver (and 2 more) (f71bb323f4, Nick Hu)
  • include: riscv_asm: Optimize csr_xyz() macros to reduce stack usage (4c1c77e085, Bo Gan)
  • Makefile: Only enable --print-gc-section for verbose (V=1) build (d28e2fa9cc, Rahul Pathak)
  • lib: utils/serial: Support multiple UART8250 devices (fbff3a7e07, Bo Gan)
  • platform: generic: spacemit: add missing objects.mk (126c9d34d2, Junhui Liu)
  • lib: sbi_domain: add sbi_domain_get_oldpmp_flags (2c1bf5bb73, Bo Gan)
  • lib/sbi: optimize domain memory regions copying (19f0c83512, Vladimir Kondratiev)
  • lib: sbi: Enable Ssqosid Ext using mstateen0 (b8b26fe121, Chen Pei)
  • platform: generic: eswin: add EIC7700 (e5797e0688, Bo Gan)
  • lib: sbi: give platform choice of using single memregion to cover OpenSBI (878c2676e6, Bo Gan)
  • lib: sbi: Factor-out PMP programming into separate sources (and 4 more) (5eec86eec8, Anup Patel)
  • include: Fix LLVM compile error in sbi_utils/hsm/fdt_hsm_sifive_inst.h (9a46ef43a4, Anup Patel)
  • platform: generic: Keep some empty space in FDT passed to next stage (4339e85794, Anup Patel)
  • lib: sbi_pmu: Fix multiple start and stop operations of FW counters (f7b81034aa, James Raphael Tiovalen)

Top Contributors

AuthorCommits
Anup Patel8
Bo Gan8
Vladimir Kondratiev5
Benedikt Freisen4
Nick Hu3
Andrew Waterman2
Samuel Holland2
Manuel Hernández Méndez2
James Raphael Tiovalen1
Deepak Gupta1

QEMU (RISC-V)

8
Commits
2
Contributors
73
Lines Added
70
Lines Removed

A quieter month for QEMU (RISC-V), with 8 commits from 2 contributors. Paolo Bonzini dominated with 7/8 commits (87%).

Notable Changes

  • hw/riscv: Treat kernel_start_addr as vaddr (ceaaeb2ad9, Anton Johansson)
  • include: move hw/sysbus.h to hw/core/ (and 6 more) (c755f3b959, Paolo Bonzini)

Top Contributors

AuthorCommits
Paolo Bonzini7
Anton Johansson1

GCC (RISC-V)

31
Commits
9
Contributors
2803
Lines Added
775
Lines Removed

GCC (RISC-V) saw moderate activity with 31 commits from 9 contributors. Robin Dapp was the most active contributor with 13 commits. Vector extension support moved forward with 7 commits. New feature work included 7 commits: "[committed][RISC-V][PR target/123274] Add missing condition in usmul3 pattern"; "RISC-V: Add VLS modes to autovec iterators.". Compiler backend and code generation improvements accounted for 6 commits.

7 Vector extension (RVV) 7 New features & support 6 Compiler backend / code generation 5 Cleanup & refactoring 3 Bug fixes 2 ISA extensions

Notable Changes

  • [PATCH][PR target/122942] RISC-V: Add zifencei extension to the rva23s64 and rvb23s64 profiles [PR122942] (976be4e014, Peter Bergner)
  • [committed][RISC-V][PR target/123274] Add missing condition in usmul3 pattern (758876f023, Jeff Law)
  • RISC-V: Remove unused placeholder_p parameter from add_function (24a1085072, Kito Cheng)
  • RISC-V: vsetvl: Add null check for fault-first loop [PR122652]. (b2d0abfcd5, Robin Dapp)
  • doc, riscv: Clean up RISC-V extensions documentation (7bf897e7c4, Sandra Loosemore)
  • [RISC-V][V2] Improve spill code for RVV slightly to fix regressions after recent changes (799fecc5f3, Jeff Law)
  • [RISC-V][PR target/123278] Handle BF/HF modes in Andes 45 series pipeline description (1444974955, Jeff Law)
  • RISC-V: Combine vec_duplicate + vmsleu.vv to vmsleu.vx on GR2VR cost (and 2 more) (678d0e0350, Pan Li)
  • RISC-V: Fix overflow check in interleave pattern [PR122970]. (and 11 more) (d4e6fc510f, Robin Dapp)
  • [RISC-V][PR target/123318] Use a Pmode temporary for output of auipc (7274c781e8, Jeff Law)
  • [RISC-V][PATCH] Adjust clmul latency in Spacemit X60 scheduler model (fa80b39721, Milan Tripkovic)
  • doc, riscv: Clean up documentation of RISC-V options [PR122243] (2bd7beba81, Sandra Loosemore)
  • [RISC-V][PR target/123283] Wrap naked REG operands with a USE. (4b618758b2, Jeff Law)
  • Fix various RISC-V testsuite regressions after volatile patch (09ed6a3d8d, Jeff Law)
  • [riscv] avoid auipc overflow with large offsets [PR91420] (fb8a9da75a, Alexandre Oliva)

Top Contributors

AuthorCommits
Robin Dapp13
Jeff Law6
Sandra Loosemore4
Pan Li3
Milan Tripkovic1
Jerry Zhang Jian1
Alexandre Oliva1
Kito Cheng1
Peter Bergner1

LLVM (RISC-V)

127
Commits
34
Contributors
33074
Lines Added
9841
Lines Removed

LLVM (RISC-V) saw heavy activity with 127 commits from 34 contributors. A hefty +33,074/-9,841 line diff. Leading the charge was Craig Topper with 44 commits. Backend and code generation work was the biggest theme at 38 commits. New feature work included 36 commits: "[RISCV] Add regalloc hints for BSETI/BEXTI (#173964)"; "[RISCV] Add regalloc hints for QC_EXTU (#173953)". Work on QC_EXTU, QC_SETWMI, Zfinx, Zicond, Zvfh accounted for 30 commits.

38 Compiler backend / code generation 36 New features & support 32 Cleanup & refactoring 30 ISA extensions 13 Bug fixes 10 Vector extension (RVV) 1 Performance optimisations

Notable Changes

  • [RISCV] Introduce new AND combine to expose additional load narrowing opportunities (#170483) (3ce0552d1a, Alex Bradbury)
  • [RISCV] Add short forward branch support for `lb`, `lbu`, `lh`, `lhu`, `lw`, `lwu` and `ld` (#170829) (5bf5657a97, quic_hchandel)
  • [RISCV] Add short forward branch support for `qc.e.lb(u)`, `qc.e.lh(u)` and `qc.e.lw` (#172629) (8a0cdb88f9, quic_hchandel)
  • [RISCV][llvm] Support PSRA, PSRAI, PSRL, PSRLI codegen for P extension (#171460) (794551dbff, Brandon Wu)
  • [RISCV][llvm] Support VFADD, VFSUB, VFMUL codegen for Zvfbfa (#170612) (e48d49fd6d, Brandon Wu)
  • [RISCV] Enable use of PACK in RISCVMatInt with P extension. (#172760) (94e03a7894, Craig Topper)
  • [RISCV] Implement conditional Zca implies C extension rule (#172860) (fc69c804db, Jerry Zhang Jian)
  • [RISC-V] Add schedule information for Qualcomm extensions (#172601) (f8ab74f25e, Venkata Ramanaiah Nalamothu)
  • [RISCV] Implement Clang Builtins for XAndesPerf Extension (#147018) (fcf762c6ec, Jim Lin)
  • [RISCV][llvm] Support fminimum, fmaximum, fminnum, fmaxnum, fminimumnum, fmaximumnum codegen for zvfbfa (#171794) (1e90a273fe, Brandon Wu)
  • [RISCV] Enable PACK isel patterns for P extension. (#173064) (418241db24, Craig Topper)
  • [llvm][RISCV] Support mulh for P extension codegen (#171581) (ef927ae263, Brandon Wu)
  • [RISCV] Custom legalize i32 saddo/ssubo on RV64 to return a sign extended value for the data result. (#172112) (ffaa6f23fd, Craig Topper)
  • [RISCV][llvm] Support PSLL codegen for P extension (#170074) (af4098b45a, Brandon Wu)
  • [RISCV][GISel] Support select G_EXTRACT_SUBVECTOR (#169789) (e66e8aac6e, Jianjian Guan)

Top Contributors

AuthorCommits
Craig Topper44
Brandon Wu11
Sudharsan Veeravalli10
Jim Lin6
Luke Lau5
Jianjian Guan4
Alex Bradbury4
Pengcheng Wang4
Min-Yih Hsu3
Frederik Harwath3

glibc (RISC-V)

3
Commits
3
Contributors
217
Lines Added
6
Lines Removed

A light month for glibc (RISC-V) with 3 commits from 3 contributors. RVV work continued with 1 commit touching vector-related code. Worth reading: the "riscv: Add RVV memset for both multiarch and non-multiarch builds" thread attracted 10 responses on the mailing list.

2 New features & support 1 Vector extension (RVV)

Notable Changes

  • riscv: Add RVV memset for both multiarch and non-multiarch builds (0b8a996f44, Yao Zihong)
  • linux: Add openat2 (BZ 31664) (0f0a5cd338, Adhemerval Zanella)
  • atomic: Reinstate HAVE_64B_ATOMICS configure check (9da0585852, Wilco Dijkstra)

Top Contributors

AuthorCommits
Yao Zihong1
Wilco Dijkstra1
Adhemerval Zanella1

Notable Discussions

GDB (RISC-V)

2
Commits
2
Contributors
81
Lines Added
5
Lines Removed

A light month for GDB (RISC-V) with 2 commits from 2 contributors. Work on Zicond, Zihintntl accounted for 1 commit.

1 ISA extensions 1 New features & support

Notable Changes

  • gdb/record: Support fense.tso, zicond, bitmanip, sinval and zihintntl in RISC-V (03e839eb44, timurgol007)
  • Use string_view in user_reg_map_name_to_regnum (d7bc2ad417, Tom Tromey)

Top Contributors

AuthorCommits
Tom Tromey1
timurgol0071

U-Boot (RISC-V)

6
Commits
5
Contributors
846
Lines Added
722
Lines Removed

U-Boot (RISC-V) saw lighter activity with 6 commits from 5 contributors.

1 New features & support

Notable Changes

  • riscv: create a custom CPU implementation for PolarFire SoC (4d056a2037, Conor Dooley)
  • RISC-V: implement private GCC library (dd0ad45920, Heinrich Schuchardt)
  • doc: board: starfive: update jh7110 common description (4c105d2ae7, E Shattow)
  • riscv: mpfs: move SoC level options to the CPU Kconfig (2f7420ccaa, Conor Dooley)
  • configs: Change default baud rate to 115200 (281e6fa4e4, Che-Wei Chuang)
  • riscv: cpu: Beautify the warning message (3b8a3df191, Leo Yu-Chi Liang)

Top Contributors

AuthorCommits
Conor Dooley2
E Shattow1
Heinrich Schuchardt1
Che-Wei Chuang1
Leo Yu-Chi Liang1

Rust (RISC-V)

2
Commits
1
Contributors
99
Lines Added
17
Lines Removed

Minimal activity in Rust (RISC-V): 2 commits. Kevaundray Wedderburn dominated with 2/2 commits (100%). Cleanup and refactoring made up 1 commit (50%).

1 New features & support 1 Cleanup & refactoring

Notable Changes

  • Add rv64IM (1fe0a85df7, Kevaundray Wedderburn)
  • refactor readme (9ba7852ddf, Kevaundray Wedderburn)

Top Contributors

AuthorCommits
Kevaundray Wedderburn2

OpenOCD (RISC-V)

6
Commits
4
Contributors
49
Lines Added
13
Lines Removed

Not the busiest month for OpenOCD (RISC-V): 6 commits from 4 contributors.

2 New features & support 1 Cleanup & refactoring

Notable Changes

  • doc: add hpm_xpi flash driver description (e440b0648f, Ryan QIAN)
  • flash/nor/bl602: add bl602 flash driver (df2eb07086, Marek Kraus)
  • board/ti_*.cfg: Move TI evm platform configurations to board/ti folder (13a082fc7e, Nishanth Menon)
  • target/riscv: tcl/target: move the WA for GD32VF103 to Tcl (21e345a2f7, Evgeniy Naydanov)
  • board/ti: Rename _swd_native.cfg as -self-hosted.cfg (6a5e4dc2a3, Nishanth Menon)
  • tcl/target: Move TI targets to ti folder (2f8ddc0835, Nishanth Menon)

Top Contributors

AuthorCommits
Nishanth Menon3
Marek Kraus1
Evgeniy Naydanov1
Ryan QIAN1

Eigen (RISC-V)

4
Commits
2
Contributors
994
Lines Added
227
Lines Removed

Eigen (RISC-V) was quiet this month with 4 commits from 2 contributors. Most of the work came from Chip Kerchner (3 of 4 commits, 75%). Vector extension support moved forward with 3 commits.

3 Vector extension (RVV) 2 Bug fixes 1 New features & support

Notable Changes

  • Add basic support for packetmath for BF16 RVV (4f14da11d9, Chip Kerchner)
  • Vectorize tan(x) (75bcd155c4, Rasmus Munk Larsen)
  • Fix FP16 for RVV so that it will compile for gcc (26fe567dd2, Chip Kerchner)
  • Fix naming of predux_half for RVV when LMUL > 1 (8cdc0fa67d, Chip Kerchner)

Top Contributors

AuthorCommits
Chip Kerchner3
Rasmus Munk Larsen1

Linux Kernel Docs & DT (RISC-V)

2
Commits
2
Contributors
37
Lines Added
0
Lines Removed

Minimal activity in Linux Kernel Docs & DT (RISC-V): 2 commits from 2 contributors.

2 Device tree / platform support 1 ISA extensions 1 New features & support

Notable Changes

  • dt-bindings: riscv: add Zilsd and Zclsd extension descriptions (4115155baf, Pincheng Wang)
  • dt-bindings: riscv: starfive: Append JH-7110 SoC compatible to VisionFive 2 Lite board (d2091990c5, E Shattow)

Top Contributors

AuthorCommits
E Shattow1
Pincheng Wang1