A new 8-bit architecture called F8 is designed for C programmes and memory efficiency, according to a recent article in Hackaday.
As C compilers are relatively straightforward to port to CPUs with a similar architecture to old minicomputers, F8’s development was inspired by the difficulties experienced in porting the Small Device C Compiler (SDCC) to 8-bit CPUs.
The architecture is not merely conceptual, as a Verilog implementation is available on the SDCC project’s SourceForge page and on GitHub, however, the name choice may not be the most memorable.
8-bit computers often struggle to efficiently run C code due to smaller data sizes than the width of a pointer, which frequently results in more complex code being required to perform even relatively simple operations.
In order to execute efficiently, the F8 architecture includes features such as stack-relative addressing, hardware 8-bit multiplication, and BCD support.
