Horizon: A Retargetable Compiler for Horizontal Microarchitectures.

Advances in memory and circuit technologies make custom microarchitectures a cost-effective approach to architectures designed to support high-performance applications such as image processing and synthesis. However, the vertical migration of complex application code into horizontal microcode makes traditional methods of handwritten and hand-optimized microcode with primitive assembly languages impractical. Higher level languages that permit abstraction from low-level timing and concurrency details are a major step toward alleviating the problem. This approach is feasible only if compilers for these languages exist that can produce high-quality microcode and that can be targeted to new machines with modest effort and high reliability. In this paper we overview the distinctive aspects of the Horizon retargetable microcode compiler that facilitate the production of highly optimized microcode and the targeting of the compiler to specific machines. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]