Microarchitecture modelling through ADL

ABSTRACT

ADL is an Architecture Description Language that has been developed to model computer architectures at different levels of detail, as for instance, at the microarchitecture level. Target architectures described in ADL are processed by the support system of the language which generates an interpreter program related to the description of the target machine. The interpreter reproduces the behavior of the architecture being modeled, including the interpretation of the target code. In addition to a brief review of the language and the implementation details of its support system, this paper also shows some methods to deal with target machine parallelism, and the modeling of two microprogrammable machines.

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INDEX TERMS

Primary Classification:
  B. Hardware
  B.1 CONTROL STRUCTURES AND MICROPROGRAMMING
      B.1.4 Microprogram Design Aids
          Subjects: Firmware engineering**

Additional Classification:
  B. Hardware
  B.6 LOGIC DESIGN
      B.6.3 Design Aids
          Subjects: Hardware description languages

General Terms:
Algorithms, Design, Languages, Performance