In the future this should make it easier to use weak symbols for the allocator shim on platforms that properly support weak symbols. And it would allow reusing the allocator shim code for handling default implementations of the upcoming externally implementable items feature on platforms that don't properly support weak symbols.
The codegen crate contains the code to convert from MIR into LLVM IR,
and then from LLVM IR into machine code. In general it contains code
that runs towards the end of the compilation process.
For more information about how codegen works, see the rustc dev guide.