Efficient instruction encoding for automatic instruction set design of configurable ASIPs

Application-specific instructions can significantly improve the performance, energy, and code size of configurable processors. A common approach used in the design of such instructions is to convert application-specific operation patterns into new complex instructions. However, processors with a fixed instruction bitwidth cannot accommodate all the potentially interesting operation patterns, due to the limited code space afforded by the fixed instruction bitwidth. We present a novel instruction set synthesis technique that employs an efficient instruction encoding method to achieve maximal performance improvement. We build a library of complex instructions with various encoding alternatives and select the best set of complex instructions while satisfying the instruction bitwidth constraint. We formulate the problem using integer linear programming and also present an effective heuristic algorithm. Experimental results using our technique generate instruction sets that show improvement...

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2002
• Where: ICCAD
• Authors: Jong-eun Lee, Kiyoung Choi, Nikil Dutt
• Keywords: Hardware, ICCAD 2002, Instruction Encoding Method, Instruction Set Synthesis, Technique Generate Instruction