Bitmask-Based Code Compression for Embedded Systems

Embedded systems are constrained by the available memory. Code-compression techniques address this issue by reducing the code size of application programs. It is a major challenge to develop an efficient code-compression technique that can generate substantial reduction in code size without affecting the overall system performance. We present a novel code-compression technique using bitmasks, which significantly improves the compression efficiency without introducing any decompression penalty. This paper makes three important contributions. 1) It develops an efficient bitmask-selection technique that can create a large set of matching patterns. 2) It develops an efficient dictionary-selection technique based on bitmasks. 3) It proposes a dictionary-based code-compression algorithm using the bitmaskand dictionary-selection techniques that can significantly reduce the memory requirement. To demonstrate the usefulness of our approach, we have performed code compression using applications ...

• Type: Journal
• Year: 2008
• Where: TCAD
• Authors: Seok-Won Seong, Prabhat Mishra
• Keywords: Code Size, Code-compression Technique, Dictionary-selection Techniques, TCAD 2008