#rvc

RISC-V

Nov 4, 2026

The C Extension: Compressed Formats and Their 32-bit Equivalents

Part 11 of the RISC-V series. Covers the nine 16-bit formats of the C extension and their 32-bit equivalents, then checks a hand-written decompressor against objdump for all 49,152 16-bit values. In real code, 51–69% of instructions became 16-bit, shrinking code by 26–34%.