An architectural framework for migration from CISC to higher performance platforms

Abstract

We describe a novel architectural framework that allows software applications written for a given Complex Instruction Set Computer (CISC) to migrate to a different, higher performance architecture, without a significant investment on the part of the application user or developer. The framework provides a hardware mechanism for seamless switching between two instruction sets, resulting in a machine that enhances application performance while keeping the same program behavior (from a user perspective). High execution speed on migrated applications is achieved through automated translation of the object code of one machine to that of the other, using advanced global optimization and scheduling techniques. Issues affecting application behavior, such as precise exceptions, as well as self-modifying code, are addressed. Relaxation of full compatibility on these issues leads to further possible performance gains, encouraging applications to adopt the newer architecture. The proposed framework offers a path for moving from complex instruction set computers (CISCs) to newer architectures, such as reduced instruction set computers (RISCs), superscalars, or very long instruction word (VLIW) machines, while protecting the extensive economic investment represented by existing software. To illustrate our approach, we show how system code written (and compiled) for the IBM System/390 can yield fine-grain parallelism, as it is targeted for execution by a VLIW machine, with encouraging performance results.