I'd say that even two years ago most mobile phones being sold were already ARMv8. That doesn't help with the SoC documentation, you're right that this has been

I'd say that even two years ago most mobile phones being sold were already ARMv8. That doesn't help with the SoC documentation, you're right that this has been a consistent weak spot. Usually documentation is offered up or it washes up only when the market relevancy of any one SoC approaches zero. Before then, it's passworded up and jealously guarded. Makes no sense to me, especially when you consider most of any one SoC to be consisting of reused generic IP blocks. I mean, I can deal with an NDA for something tricky like your new GPU, but that doesn't explain why I can't figure out the interrupt routing or your clock and GPIO blocks. If you're referring to ARM servers, then things are still pretty solid (it takes a while to line up an entire hardware and software ecosystem, even in a world where you're all set if it runs Linux). There are specs like SBSA and SBBR that ensure servers from any SoC vendor look roughly the same, but I would wonder why you would target bare metal in that case anyway. Have you considered targeting ARMv8 VMs, like the one modeled by KVM/qemu? Extra bonus in that it looks like an ARM server.