Software Development Tool

摘要

The software development tool (701) forms part of a software development kit (700). The software development tool (701) receives as input object files (606) and library files (607) and subjects the object file instructions and data definitions of the object files and the library files to re-sequencing to generate new object files and the links between them which are semantically equivalent to the input object files and library files and which are used to generate an optimized executable. The software development tool (701) is capable of automatically generating an executable, without requiring any modification of the source code, which is optimized to execute more deterministically and with respect to execution time; reduced processor and memory requirements; reduced off-chip memory accesses; reduced memory latency.

主权项

1. A tangible medium storing computer readable instructions for use at the linker stage and adapted to improve the performance of an executable for a specific target computer system comprising at least one processor, software storage and read/write memory including caches, buffers and accelerators, the computer readable instructions comprising:
instructions for receiving one or more of object files and library files and for analysing instruction sequences and data structures therein used in generation of the executables; instructions for determining interactions of the object files and library files, the processor pipeline and the read/write memory of the target computer system with respect to one or more of: relationships between the instruction sequences; relationships between the data structures; and relationships between the instruction sequences and the data structures; instructions for re-sequencing one or more of:
(i) at least one of the instruction sequences, and(ii) at least one of the data structures,to generate re-sequenced versions each re-sequenced version having a different set of at least one re-sequenced instruction sequence and/or data structure;
instructions for determining statically for each re-sequenced version an Average Case Execution Time (ACET) with respect to one or more processors and one or more memories of the target computer system; instructions for selecting one of the re-sequenced versions based on its ACET; and instructions for generating an executable using one or more selected re-sequenced versions.