[Colloquium] Matthias Blume talk today at TTI

[Meridel Trimble]

TOYOTA TECHNOLOGICAL INSTITUTE TALK 

Speaker: Matthias Blume
Toyota Technological Institute 

Speaker’s homepage: http://www.tti-c.org/blume.shtml

Time: 11:45am
Date: Friday, Jan 23, 2004
Place: TTI-C (1427 East 60th Street, Second Floor - Press Building) 
*Refreshments provided following talk*

Title: Taming the IXP Network Processor

Abstract: We have designed a new programming language, called Nova, and 
implemented a compiler for it. Nova is designed for programming the 
microengines of the Intel IXP network processor. The specifics of this 
architecture and its application domain (network processing) make it extremely 
awkward to write programs "by hand" at the assembly level, but at the same 
time they pose some unique challenges for compilers of higher-level languages. 
Our compiler uses a back end based on integer-linear programming (ILP) for 
register allocation, optimal bank assignment, and spills. The optimizer 
employs continuation-passing style (CPS) as its intermediate representation; 
some of the invariants that this IR guarantees are essential for the 
formulation of a practical ILP model. 

In this talk I will first briefly introduce the challenging aspects of the 
processor of network processing in general, then discuss how these are 
addressed by Nova's design, and finally describe how ILP can be used to model 
the register assignment problem. In contrast to earlier work, e.g., by Appel 
and George, our approach takes account of register aggregation and solves the 
bank assignment problem together with the problem of assigning individual 
register numbers in certain banks. 

(This is joint work with Lal George.)

If you have questions, or would like to meet the speaker, please contact 
Meridel at 4-9873 or mtrimble at tti-c.org
 
For information on future TTI-C talks or events, please go to the TTI-C Events 
page: http://www.tti-c.org/events.shtml

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Toyota Technological Institute at Chicago