Optimization strategies for a java virtual machine interpreter on the cell broadband engine

ABSTRACT

Virtual machines (VMs) such as the Java VM are a popular format for running architecture-neutral code in a managed runtime. Such VMs are typically implemented using a combination of interpretation and just-in-time compilation (JIT). A significant challenge for the portability of VM code is the growing popularity of multi-core architectures with specialized processing cores aimed at computation-intensive applications such as media processing. Such cores differ greatly in architectural design compared to traditional desktop processors. One such processing core is the Cell Broadband Engine's (Cell BE) Synergistic Processing Element (SPE). An SPE is a light weight VLIW processor core with a SIMD vector instruction set. In this paper we investigate some popular interpreter optimizations and introduce new optimizations exploiting the special hardware properties offered by the Cell BE's SPE

REFERENCES

• 1: James R. Bell, Threaded code, Communications of the ACM, v.16 n.6, p.370-372, June 1973 [doi>10.1145/362248.362270]
• 2: B. Brock and M. Exerman. Cache Latencies of the PowerPC MPC7451. Freescale Semiconductor Application Note, AN2180, 2006
• 3: Kevin Casey , M. Anton Ertl , David Gregg, Optimizing indirect branch prediction accuracy in virtual machine interpreters, ACM Transactions on Programming Languages and Systems (TOPLAS), v.29 n.6, p.37-es, October 2007 [doi>10.1145/1286821.1286828]
• 4: Alexandre E. Eichenberger , Kathryn O'Brien , Kevin O'Brien , Peng Wu , Tong Chen , Peter H. Oden , Daniel A. Prener , Janice C. Shepherd , Byoungro So , Zehra Sura , Amy Wang , Tao Zhang , Peng Zhao , Michael Gschwind, Optimizing Compiler for the CELL Processor, Proceedings of the 14th International Conference on Parallel Architectures and Compilation Techniques, p.161-172, September 17-21, 2005 [doi>10.1109/PACT.2005.33]
• 5: M. Anton Ertl, Stack caching for interpreters, Proceedings of the ACM SIGPLAN 1995 conference on Programming language design and implementation, p.315-327, June 18-21, 1995, La Jolla, California, United States
• 6: Jan Hoogerbrugge , Lex Augusteijn, Pipelined Java Virtual Machine Interpreters, Proceedings of the 9th International Conference on Compiler Construction, p.35-49, March 25-April 02, 2000
• 7: IBM. Cell Broadband Engine Programming Handbook, 4 2007.
• 8: J. A. Kahle , M. N. Day , H. P. Hofstee , C. R. Johns , T. R. Maeurer , D. Shippy, Introduction to the cell multiprocessor, IBM Journal of Research and Development, v.49 n.4/5, p.589-604, July 2005
• 9: Iffat H. Kazi , Howard H. Chen , Berdenia Stanley , David J. Lilja, Techniques for obtaining high performance in Java programs, ACM Computing Surveys (CSUR), v.32 n.3, p.213-240, Sept. 2000 [doi>10.1145/367701.367714]
• 10: Tim Lindholm , Frank Yellin, Java Virtual Machine Specification, Addison-Wesley Longman Publishing Co., Inc., Boston, MA, 1999
• 11: A. Noll, A. Gal, and M. Franz. CellVM: A Homogeneous Virtual Machine Runtime System for a Heterogeneous Single-Chip Multiprocessor, 2006.
• 12: Kazunori Ogata , Hideaki Komatsu , Toshio Nakatani, Bytecode fetch optimization for a Java interpreter, Proceedings of the 10th international conference on Architectural support for programming languages and operating systems, October 05-09, 2002, San Jose, California
• 13: Augustus K. Uht , Vijay Sindagi , Sajee Somanathan, Branch Effect Reduction Techniques, Computer, v.30 n.5, p.71-81, May 1997 [doi>10.1109/2.589913]
• 14: Samuel Williams , John Shalf , Leonid Oliker , Shoaib Kamil , Parry Husbands , Katherine Yelick, The potential of the cell processor for scientific computing, Proceedings of the 3rd conference on Computing frontiers, May 03-05, 2006, Ischia, Italy [doi>10.1145/1128022.1128027]

INDEX TERMS

Primary Classification:
  D. Software
  D.3 PROGRAMMING LANGUAGES
      D.3.4 Processors
          Subjects: Interpreters

General Terms:
Design, Experimentation, Languages, Performance

Keywords:
interpreter, java, language implementation, virtual machine