Title: Improving Java performance using dynamic method migration on FPGAs

Authors: Emanuele Lattanzi, Aman Gayasen, Mahmut Kandemir, N. Vijaykrishnan, Luca Benini, Alessandro Bogliolo

Addresses: ISTI – Information Science and Technology Institute, University of Urbino, piazza della Repubblica, 13, 61029 Urbino, Italy. ' CSE – Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Penn State University, 342 IST Building, University Park, PA 16802, USA. ' CSE – Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Penn State University, 342 IST Building, University Park, PA 16802, USA. ' CSE – Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Penn State University, 342 IST Building, University Park, PA 16802, USA. ' DEIS – Department of Electronics, Computer Science and Systems, University of Bologna, Viale Risorgimento, 2, 40136 Bologna, Italy. ' ISTI – Information Science and Technology Institute, University of Urbino, piazza della Repubblica, 13, 61029 Urbino, Italy

Abstract: With the diffusion of Java in advanced multimedia mobile devices, there is a growing need for speeding up the execution of Java bytecode beyond the limits of traditional interpreters and just-in-time compilers. In this area, Java coprocessors are viewed as a promising technology, which marries the flexibility of a general-purpose microprocessor to run legacy code and lightweight Java methods, with the high performance of a specialised execution engine on speed-critical bytecode. This work proposes and analyses a microprocessor with FPGA coprocessor architecture with efficient shared-memory communication support. Furthermore, we describe a complete run-time environment that supports dynamic migration of Java methods to the coprocessor, and we quantitatively analyse speedups achievable under a number of system configurations using an accurate complete-system simulator.

Keywords: FPGA; Java coprocessors; dynamic migration; Java performance; multimedia mobile devices; simulation; reconfiguarable architectures; embedded systems.

DOI: 10.1504/IJES.2005.009952

International Journal of Embedded Systems, 2005 Vol.1 No.3/4, pp.228 - 236

Published online: 05 Jun 2006 *

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