diff --git a/Makefile b/Makefile
index 544af731c..d3951eadb 100644
--- a/Makefile
+++ b/Makefile
@@ -96,8 +96,9 @@ INCLUDES		+=	-Ilib/include/ -Iinclude/aarch64/ -Iinclude/	\
 				-Iarch/system/gic -Icommon/psci			\
 				-Iinclude/stdlib -Iinclude/stdlib/sys
 
-ASFLAGS			+= 	-nostdinc -Wa,--fatal-warnings -D__ASSEMBLY__ ${INCLUDES}
-CFLAGS			:= 	-nostdinc -Wall -Werror -std=c99 -c -Os \
+ASFLAGS			+= 	-nostdinc -ffreestanding -Wa,--fatal-warnings	\
+				-D__ASSEMBLY__ ${INCLUDES}
+CFLAGS			:= 	-nostdinc -ffreestanding -Wall -Werror -std=c99 -c -Os \
 				-DDEBUG=${DEBUG} ${INCLUDES} ${CFLAGS}
 
 LDFLAGS			+=	--fatal-warnings -O1
diff --git a/docs/change-log.md b/docs/change-log.md
index 08d185455..b400ac7a8 100644
--- a/docs/change-log.md
+++ b/docs/change-log.md
@@ -82,6 +82,9 @@ Detailed changes since last release
     Implementations for `putchar()` and `strchr()` were added to the local C
     library.
 
+*   GCC compiler built-in function support has been disabled in order to improve
+    compiler independence.
+
 
 ARM Trusted Firmware - version 0.2
 ==================================