ROCm compilers disambiguation

Applies to Linux and Windows

2024-02-20

4 min read time

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

Compiler terms

Term	Description
amdclang++	Clang/LLVM-based compiler that is part of rocm-llvm package. The source code is available at https://github.com/ROCm/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/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/HIPCC.
ROCmCC	Clang/LLVM-based compiler. ROCmCC in itself is not a binary but refers to the overall compiler.