ROCm Compilers Disambiguation

ROCm Compilers Disambiguation#

Applies to Linux and Windows

2023-05-25

4 min read time

ROCm ships multiple compilers of varying origins and purposes. This article disambiguates compiler naming used throughout the documentation.

Term	Description
`amdclang++`	Clang/LLVM-based compiler that is part of `rocm-llvm` package. The source code is available at https://github.com/RadeonOpenCompute/llvm-project.
AOCC	Closed-source clang-based compiler that includes additional CPU optimizations. Offered as part of ROCm via the `rocm-llvm-alt` package. See for details, https://developer.amd.com/amd-aocc/.
HIP-Clang	Informal term for the `amdclang++` compiler
HIPify	Tools including `hipify-clang` and `hipify-perl`, used to automatically translate CUDA source code into portable HIP C++. The source code is available at https://github.com/ROCm-Developer-Tools/HIPIFY
`hipcc`	HIP compiler driver. A utility that invokes `clang` or `nvcc` depending on the target and passes the appropriate include and library options for the target compiler and HIP infrastructure. The source code is available at https://github.com/ROCm-Developer-Tools/HIPCC.
ROCmCC	Clang/LLVM-based compiler. ROCmCC in itself is not a binary but refers to the overall compiler.