Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!cs.utexas.edu!usc!wuarchive!sdd.hp.com!samsung!crackers!m2c!umvlsi!dime!dime.cs.umass.edu!moss From: moss@cs.umass.edu (Eliot Moss) Newsgroups: comp.arch Subject: Re: Compilers taking advantage of architectural enhancements Message-ID: Date: 13 Oct 90 21:21:08 GMT References: <162639@<1990Oct9> <3300194@m.cs.uiuc.edu> Sender: news@dime.cs.umass.edu Reply-To: moss@cs.umass.edu Organization: Dept of Comp and Info Sci, Univ of Mass (Amherst) Lines: 37 In-reply-to: aglew@crhc.uiuc.edu's message of 11 Oct 90 19:49:20 GMT With respect to large register files, David Wall at DECWRL did studies that indicated that inter-procedural (really global) register allocation at link time can profitably use a large number of registers and win over register window and similar architectures. He considered register files up to 64 or so registers. It did appear that more than that was not likely to yield significant additional improvement (as I recall). Here are the refs: David W. Wall, "Global Register Allocation at Link Time", WRL Rsch Rpt 86/3, (see also Proc SIGPLAN '86 Symp on Compiler Construction, SIGPLAN Notices 21, 7, 264-275). David W. Wall, Michael L. Powell, "The Mahler Experience: Using an Intermediate Language as the Machine Description", WRL Rsch Rpt 87/1, (see also Proc Second Symp on Arch Support for Prog Lang and Operating Systems, 1987). David W. Wall, "Register Windows vs. Register Allocation", WRL Rsch Rpt 87/5, (see also Proc SIGPLAN '88 Conf on Prog Lang Design and Impl). David W. Wall, "Link-Time Code Modification", WRL Rsch Rpt 89/17. Note that DEC WRL Research Reports can be obtained by sending mail to an automatic response system; to get an index and instructions, I believe the protocol is to send a piece of mail to wrl-techreports@wrl.dec.com with the body being: send index Enjoy! Eliot -- J. Eliot B. Moss, Assistant Professor Department of Computer and Information Science Lederle Graduate Research Center University of Massachusetts Amherst, MA 01003 (413) 545-4206; Moss@cs.umass.edu