Microsoft Research's Phoenix Framework website has recently been updated with documentation and other resources related to the project. There's even a Research Development Kit (RDK) available for download that integrates with Visual Studio 2005. The RDK is licensed exclusively for academic purposes.

Phoenix is a framework for building compilers and a wide range of tools for program analysis, optimization, and testing. Phoenix is designed to support advanced techniques in compilation and program analysis. It provides a wide variety of building blocks, implemented around a common intermediate representation. Phoenix applies equally well to basic block analysis; memory tracing; code coverage; fault injection; run-time profiling and feedback; ahead-of-time and just-in-time compilers; and whole-program, post-link, and runtime optimization. In its role as a compiler backend, Phoenix code generation can target a wide range of processor architectures.

Phoenix brings together the skills and expertise of three Microsoft groups: Visual C++, Microsoft Research, and .NET Common Language Runtime. It is intended as the basis of industrial-strength compilers and tools.